Let's Kill (Tonight)
by in perpetuum
Summary: She is not here to be Kemp Hurley's glorious final kill. / Hunger Games AU. Massington. Strongest T.
1. Part One: Volunteer

_**If you're wondering where I went for the past however long I've been MIA, it's been here. A month or so ago I rewatched the Hunger Games trilogy and in a NyQuil-induced stupor, this massive fic was born. And by massive, I mean MASSIVE. It's currently not done-almost there, actually, so I'm posting part one now-but it's about 250 pages and close to 100,000 words. I don't know what happened. All I know is for the years I've been writing fic I've always wanted to make a Clique-Goes-Hunger Games fic and this is more than I could ever imagine. Seventeen year old me is shook.**_

 _ **I've taken a lot of liberties here since I am in no way an expert on The Hunger Games and I haven't read the books in quite a while. If anything is weird or wrong, ignore it. This is written in a very different style than I'm used to and you'll see that more in the coming parts.**_

 _ **For now, please enjoy what has consumed my life for far too long. I can't even believe I'm giving this to the world.**_

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part One_

* * *

 **volunteer |** **välən** ˈ **tir**  
noun  
 _a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task  
_ synonyms: come forward, enlist, sign up, step forward

* * *

District One is all about the glam.

That's probably what brought her mother here, all those years ago, purposely flirting and weaseling her way from District Seven, somehow—conveniently, some may say—having William Block, most famous Victor, fall for her. Granted Kendra was a Victor in her own right, but there was something about the way William beheaded all of his opponents that commentators still call poetic and awe-inspiring. If there was anything to talk about, Massie believes it should the length of time that Hunger Games lasted. Her dad's no joke; he was in the arena for a little under two days.

Massie takes a long pull from her champagne flute and forces a smile at the next random guest to greet her.

It's her parents' annual victory party. Screens all around them show off their respective Games, and it'd be interesting had she not watched them time and time again. Had she not _taken notes_ , been _quizzed._

The room is magnificently decorated to portray both themes of their arenas—artful brick and green, green ivy. A lion cub prowls near the forest they'd spent a little under five grand on, lets out roars that it probably shouldn't be able to make at this age. An experiment, a Capitol creation, no doubt a gift from the president, who, if Massie is not mistaken, is around here somewhere.

She grabs another one of those drinks as they pass her by. Their guests are enraptured with her father, who does an excellent commentary on her mother's Games. They've just gotten to the part where she fights the lion—and Massie is actually quite certain that same animal is in their ballroom right now—and William says something like _this is the moment when I knew I loved her_.

Which.

That's a lie.

He says that every year.

Kendra's sixteen year old self irritates the animal so much it looks like it's about to rip her throat out.

Instead, it bites through the flesh of a District Four tribute, Kendra having flipped over the beast at the last moment. The other's dying screams are drowned out by cheers: present day William has pulled Kendra into a rather public kiss.

 _That's my girl,_ he says, and Massie fights back a scoff. They're so _fake_. If only the revelers could see them in the privacy of their home: Kendra has her own bedroom. She and William haven't slept together—sexually and non-sexually—since Massie was conceived. She knocks back her fourth champagne of the night as they dip into another nauseating public display and twists in her strappy gold heels, eager for an escape from whatever this is turning into.

Escape, unfortunately, is not in the cards. She turns, becomes face to face with a picture of herself, mouth taut, eyebrows furrowed, jaw clenched. Her skin is so airbrushed the freckles along her cheeks are indistinguishable. Her hair is pulled away from her cheekbones, two dark braids down her back.

Watching her parents made it easy to forget the other reason they're all gathered here. Her eyes flicker to the other poster, to the dark face of her fellow volunteer.

 _Congratulations to our District One Tributes!_ the sign screams, and there's her age, weight, height, specialty all spelled out for everyone to see. It's like she's getting married and this is some sort of engagement party, not a celebration of someone's imminent death.

She spots her partner several feet over, grinning at the slew of girls, all resplendent in jewel tones and tight fabrics, cooing all over him.

Kemp Hurley's a pig. She catches him run a hand down the back of some girl in green, cups her ass. She giggles. He looks up, winks at Massie, ducks his head to whisper in a different girl's ear.

Massie allows herself a moment for the sneer that graces her lips (though she is normally scolded for creating such an ugly look on a pretty face) and once again turns away from such an unpleasant sight.

It's not like she expects any different. Not from him. Not on their last night of freedom, _but_. She may have hoped a little more than she should have.

"Let him live," a voice tells her. "I remember being in his shoes."

Massie rolls her eyes. "You were fourteen," she replies silkily. "Can't imagine you thought much about being slutty."

Cam chuckles, a husky sort of thing that Massie imagines sets Capitol women's hearts aflutter. "I mean," he starts, tongue running against his front teeth. "No," he admits. "But I remember wondering if I'd ever get the chance."

"And look at you now," Massie simpers, insincere. "Voted _Hottest Male Tribute_ three years and counting. Must be nice."

His eyes, the color of fucking gemstones, sapphire and emerald, dance with amusement. "I know you're jealous."

"Of your certainty of life, sure," she returns. Then, uncomfortable with her honesty, changes the subject: "Know who else is competing, _Mentor_?" She purrs the last word, relishes in the flush that creeps up the length of his neck.

He may be twenty two years old and significantly older than her, but she loves the effect she has on him. How easy it is to rile him up, to embarrass him. It's always made his mentorship all the more fun, seeing what would make him snap. How far she could push. Sexuality seems to make him nervous.

It also makes her feel the tiniest bit better about the whole Kemp thing, which should not upset her, but does. Why doesn't _she_ have boys fawning all over her? Why's he the only special one here? She has a better aim.

"No," Cam says. "We'll find out for sure tomorrow, but… most likely the usual suspects if the information I've been given is anything to go by. Legacies have kids up for volunteerism in Career districts, so." He shrugs.

"Useless," she murmurs. Pats his cheek condescendingly.

"Doesn't matter who ends up in the arena," he returns. "Win."

Massie smiles, close lipped. "That's what I do best."

"Lay off the champagne, Massie," Fawn Davies hisses, their other mentor, all aglow in this sparkly black number that does nothing to conceal her curves. She lays a territorial hand on Cam, who snakes his arm around her waist, and spots Kemp out of the corner of her eye. "Oh, for fuck's sake," she snaps. "I thought I told you to keep them under control. We have an _image_ to maintain."

Cam squeezes her hip. "Sorry," he says, but doesn't sound sorry at all.

 **…**

The Reaping in District One is a formality.

They hardly get to pull a name from the bowl before Kemp is shouting _I volunteer_ and Massie is propelled forward moments later, following in his footsteps.

The cheers from their fellow townspeople are deafening.

She likes to think the ones for her are loudest of all.

(She knows they aren't.)

 **…**

From the footage provided by the other Districts, it's clear Massie is the best female tribute. _Presumptuous of you_ , Fawn says to her, lounging on the leather couch fit for a District of their rank. Massie ignores her stupid mentor, glad she chose to help Kemp, not her.

She knows she should wait until they actually get to the Capitol, but it's _so easy_ to size up her competition based on these small snippets of footage. No one else looks as fast. As mentally fit. She's going to be judged based on her looks, but she's vicious as much as she's beautiful. A rose, thorns hidden on her stem, just waiting to pierce her enemies.

But really, _come on_.

Her only real concern is Skye from Two, but she'll be able to pinpoint her strengths and weaknesses as soon as they meet up to form alliances. She's a tad bit worried about the girl from Four; she's small, maybe twelve years old. She'll be done in a second, if she even survives the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. But she has a fire in her eye that is commendable. She looks to rely way too much on her partner, but with the way that kid is built, it may benefit her until, y'know, it doesn't.

"You've got to be fucking shitting me," Kemp snarls, and he's shirtless, muscles glistening with sweat. " _That's_ who they picked from Four? Fisher you _told_ me it was going to be that Abeley kid!"

Cam hardly spares him a glance. "They must've changed their minds. Hotz didn't mention any changes last I spoke to him."

"Of course Casanova hasn't," hisses Kemp. "You're the competition."

"Hardly." Cam snorts.

Massie licks her lips, reaches forward to pour herself a glass of ice water.

Kemp moves to stand in front of her, eyes trained to the television. They don't give any more information on District Four, moving to the next Reaping, but Massie can tell by the set of his shoulders that he's more worried than annoyed.

She shoots her leg out, prodding him in the thigh. "Go take a shower," she orders. "You smell."

He throws his wet towel at her, the one he's wrapped around his neck, and doesn't move until he's seen all the tributes. Even then he's stiffer than she's ever seen him, uncharacteristically concerned, though he'll never admit it.

 **…**

They live so close to the Capitol that their train ride is much shorter than the other Districts'. They leave later than the others and show up last, making a grand entrance that Massie loves. She lives for the drama.

She spots the rest of the tributes as she waltzes into the building, hair billowing behind her in immaculate curls, tamed to perfection by Jakkob. He's followed her from One, part of her Glam Squad, as she likes to call them.

Massie can feel the inquisitive gazes from the others. Notes the way they rake up and down her body. She's in her usual training outfit, tight leggings and an equally tight mesh top. Both breathable, workable fabrics. She and Kemp have plans to hit the training room when they're done here, whatever here is supposed to be.

And technically they aren't allowed to get extra training time before the Games, but… District One (and Two, she supposes) normally gets what it wants when it comes to the Capitol.

Kemp sneers at somebody, some bulk of a figure from Eleven, and latches on to Massie's arm. His grip is tight, his hand huge.

She breathes, ignores the heat (and the irritation spreading through her body; _she is not an object he owns_ ). She allows herself one perfunctory glance at the boy he's staring down and fights back a scoff.

"Hardly anything to be concerned about," she whispers, a ghost of a breath.

Kemp harrumphs, pressing her into his side. "Don't care," he says. "I don't like the look of him."

Later on, he'll have been right to be wary.

But for now:

Massie elbows him hard and untangles herself. He coughs, glaring, and she thinks she hears someone snort.

"I can take him," she announces grandly, making a scene. They're all already watching, so she might as well stand her ground, make them know she's not one to mess with.

Kemp quirks a brow, follows her lead. He knows her theatrics. Has known them since they were seven, forced together in training. "Yeah?" he shoots back, recovering from her attack quickly. "Who?"

Massie makes eye contact with Eleven, and that boy from Four Kemp is (silently, but obviously) worried about. "Does it matter?" she answers back. "All of them."

 **…**

"Go," says Fawn.

Massie closes her eyes, centers herself, and shoots forward. In every direction simulated opponents chuck axes, shoot arrows. They jump from ledges, attempt to distract her. Arms throw punches. Legs try to sweep hers from underneath her.

All the while, she's using her (untraditional) skill of gymnastics to avoid it all.

There's a whoosh of wind by her right ear, signaling a weapon come too close.

Once she makes it across the room, all of her virtual enemies clustered in one spot, she snatches a sharp object from its home on her back, cocks her head to the side, and _throws_.

She is not concerned with the rush of the dummies running towards her. She watches, calculating, and smiles as the boomerang sings, splitting the air and soaring through computerized necks. Any enemy the boomerang touches disappears with a crash.

Massie catches the weapon, runs a finger gently, lovingly along its silver, safer side.

Those who do not get destroyed by her first line of offense charge to finish her off, but she merely waits. Fits the boomerang back in its secured pouch. When they're close enough, lifting their various weapons to make killing blows, Massie jumps, flips, engages them in hand to hand combat.

A high kick here, right in the face, where it would force the nose so far back into the skull the person would die on impact. Or shortly after.

A punch to the gut, then the neck; a stab of a knife through the heart.

She ducks, avoids what looks like a long sword, sweeps her leg out. The simulation trips, Massie leaps, and, if this were a real person, would land on shoulders. Instead, she twists the head while she's in the air, breaks the neck with a snap.

It's over in eleven minutes.

"Slower than usual," Fawn informs her with a yawn. "Again."

Massie's chest heaves. She wipes sweat from her brow, clenches her jaw.

Her best time is under seven minutes, but goddamn.

"Hey," Kemp says, brash and large and loud. "Why does she get to have all the fun in here?"

Fawn taps her nails along the dashboard. "I thought you were boxing."

"I was." Kemp saunters further in the room. Massie's tired gaze settles on his biceps, on display in his ripped shirtsleeves. A tribal tattoo wraps around his left one. "But I got bored." He runs a finger along the part in her hair, tugs on her braid. She grits her teeth, bares them when he ducks to look at her. "And I broke Fish's knuckles, so I'm currently without trainer," he says to her, though the explanation is for Fawn.

She doesn't give him recognition, stares straight ahead.

He wraps his whole hand around the back of her neck, gripping it like they're wolves, like he's an alpha and she's a beta, and he wants her to drop in submission. It's dominant of him, everything always is, and Massie lets him handle her like this but does not back down like he wants. Hisses through her clenched teeth as he smiles, if the sneer on his mouth can be called that. Fawn watches them closely, brows furrowed, and mutters something about finding him the right setting, _the asshole_.

Kemp grins, rubs his thumb along the skin hidden behind her hair. She shivers.

 **…**

Fawn runs her fingers through her hair, nails sharper than usual. Massie bites the inside of her cheek, refusing to show weakness, to show that it hurts.

"Do not embarrass us in there," the older girl says.

"You're talking to _me_ ," Massie reminds her, throwing all sense out the window and gripping Fawn's wrist with a tight grip. She twists, pulling the other's hand out of her hair. "Not Kemp. I know how to behave."

An imperial quirk of the brow. "No champagne. No wine. You need to make nice with the Capitol. They need to find a reason to bet on you. To send you gifts in your time of need."

"As if I'll ever be in a time of need," simpers Massie.

She catches Fawn's hand before she can slap her. "No, no, no," she taunts. "My face will help make nice. I'll have all those Capitol men eating out of the palm of my hand." She smirks.

Fawn releases a breath through gritted teeth, shoves Massie roughly with her shoulder. "If it were the two of us in that arena next week, you'd be my first kill," the blonde promises, making a dramatic entrance into the ballroom.

Massie watches her, entitled grin still playing on her mouth, and turns to inspect her reflection once more.

Luckily for her Fawn has not ruined anything a little flick of the neck and pinch of the cheeks can't fix. Her eyes are a little wild from her argument, something that will no doubt benefit her in the long run, and the slit running up the side of her dress shows off the miles of toned leg she's spent half her life perfecting. Even if she wasn't as beautiful as she is, those losers inside would wet themselves at the sight of William Block and Kendra Oh's only child.

"Like a viper," a voice comes from her left.

She blinks, hand clenching at her side like she's reaching for a blade; she grabs a fistful of dress instead and focuses on smoothing it down. Her eyes settle in on the dark figure in the corner—has he always been there?—and she presses her lips together, disappointed in her surveillance skills.

 _Not that Fawn noticed, either,_ a snide voice whips through her mind. She still decides to spend an extra hour or two at the Surveillance and Tracking station the next day. Maybe even tonight if she can sneak out.

"Excuse me?" she snaps at him, trying to place the name to the face but drawing a blank.

"Striking and lethal," he elaborates. He opts to step forward, into the light, which shines off the blonde of his hair, the dark of his deep tan. He's this bulk of a guy, bigger than Kemp, who, quite frankly, is huge.

"Striking," she deadpans. "As in—"

"Beautiful, yes," he interrupts. His eyes hold her gaze, even through the reflective surface of the mirror. There's a twinkle in them that's indescribable, like he's constantly having fun. Like life is a game and he knows he'll win.

That kind of attitude will be his downfall during the Games. It's not fun when you're a murderer. Not fun when you know you'll have to turn around and kill your district partner when the time comes. The _right_ time, to create the right kind of TV.

It's not fun when your mentors are deliberating over who will be the one to kill who. When your mentors are going to give you a fucking _script_ to follow.

Massie's arrogant, yes, and a Legacy, of course, but she knows who the world wants to see win. It's not her. It's their diamond, beautiful to look at and sharp around the edges, able to fit and mold himself into the perfect Capitol boy. The winner the world will pay millions, _billions_ , to interact with, to dine with, to—

"Vipers are not particularly beautiful," she retorts. "Try another analogy when you're in there. Flirting is clearly not your forte."

This boy grabs her wrist as she passes him, a more gentle touch than she's received since arriving here. _In years_ , actually, if she deigns to think about it.

"It depends," he says. "It depends on the person doing the comparing." His voice is a breath against the back of her neck; he's moved her hair to drape it over her right shoulder. "Your mentor bruised you here," he informs her, a ghost of a touch along her collarbone. "Nasty little thing, yeah?"

Massie swallows. The goosebumps spreading along her skin are from the cold of the manor. That's all.

"Looks like I'm not doing too bad," the boy murmurs, catching her body's reactions. "Might get just as many sponsors as you. Maybe more."

She grits her teeth, points her chin.

"I'm Derrick, by the way," he introduces. "From Four. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Massie Block."

"I bet it is," she shoots back.

 **…**

From the stairwell, Kemp seethes.

 **…**

"Twelve," Derrick tells her the next day. He tosses her a water bottle.

She quirks a brow, uncaps the drink, chugs half.

"Sponsors," he replies helpfully. "Twelve. That's how many I confirmed before I left. Not sure how many it is now, though, after the fact."

"Hm," she offers.

He grins, this thing that makes his face even more unbearably attractive than it already is (not that she notices things like that, no), and leans against the wall, nestled by the weapons. A sword shines behind him, sparkles like his teeth.

" _What_ ," she snaps.

"Nothing." She watches his mouth as he says the word, tongue caressing the second syllable.

"Kay." She narrows her eyes, aims the half empty water bottle at his chest. He catches it without effort.

Derrick from District Four lets her get halfway across the training center before he shouts, "If you straighten your posture more you'll be able to throw your knives farther!"

Massie shoves her foot against his favorite weapons display (not that she notices things like that, no), letting the steel and metal tumble loudly to the floor.

She makes a scene, but somehow Derrick's laughter is louder than the ringing of the swords and spears.

 **…**

"No."

" _No_?"

Massie thinks Fawn is particularly insipid tonight, but wisely keeps her mouth shut. She opts to dip strawberries into chocolate instead, rewarding herself on her training score.

"I don't want them," Kemp spits. He crosses his arms over his chest, a formidable figure against the couch. Or so he thinks. He merely looks like an overgrown toddler causing a scene.

Cam presses his fingers to his temples. "It doesn't matter if you _want_ them; it is _expected_. You will make nice with Two and Four, choose others you'd like to ally with, and then pick each other off one by one."

"It's how it _works_ ," Fawn adds. It's unnecessary. They know.

But still: the remarkably casual way they speak of child murder is disgusting. Massie bites down on her fruit so hard she feels the vibration of her teeth slamming together travel down her neck.

"Two is fine," Kemp says. "I don't want Four."

"You will _take them_ —"

"A preteen and an overgrown golden retriever?" Kemp scoffs. "I'd rather the twig from Twelve and the stupid kid from Five that confused his poisonous berries yesterday."

"I'll take them, then," Massie comments, if just to watch Kemp lose all semblance of control. "They seem adept."

"No," Kemp says again.

"If you don't want them, what's the point?"

"The _point_ is you are my partner, and we are allying together, and _I don't want them._ We can do to shake up some traditions. Two's pathetic this year, and Four isn't any better now that Abeley is not in the picture. We're obviously the District to win…"

Massie fights her eye roll. "There was no point there, just your stubbornness." She nods at Fawn. "I accept the alliance. Let Josh know."

" _No_ ," says Kemp. "I will not tolerate two twelves in this group—"

It takes Massie a moment to understand what he's saying, and then: " _That's_ what this is about? A _score_? A fucking _number_?"

"Of course it doesn't matter to you," he hisses. "You were so impressive doing god knows what that they gave you a full score. Harrington probably fucked each judge to get his, and I perform exceedingly well to _only get an eleven._ "

"An eleven is practically a twelve," Massie snaps, "and no one even cares about your training score unless it's under a seven. Fuck, Kemp. Reign your tantrum in."

"Actually," Cam says, watching Kemp carefully, "save it for the arena. People like to see tributes come undone."

"Sure, whatever." Kemp flicks his fingers in an obvious dismissal. No one moves. He's no one's leader yet. "You'll see worse when I run my sword through both of you at the same time."

Massie does not like the way her shoulders go rigid, coughs delicately around a mouthful of strawberry to rid anyone of the thought that his comment actually upset her. "So that's how it's going to be."

There is a flicker of something in Kemp's eye, maybe regret. Guilt. "We talked about this," he says. "I didn't care what score you got as long as it was below mine."

Massie grits her teeth.

"And now you just accept this alliance—"

"—because that's what we _do_ , we accept beneficial alliances, that way we _get ahead_ —"

"I didn't want to kill you first," Kemp muses, more to himself than anything, but the seriousness in which he says it cuts Massie to the core. "It's so tasteless, but you leave me no choice. I don't want to, but I have to—"

Massie takes her fork and stabs it between his fingers, making sure to dig the prongs into the skin between his index finger and thumb.

He takes in a sharp breath, watches the blood pool around the silver. Other than that, he makes no move that she's even pierced him.

"Maybe _I'll_ kill _you_ first," she snaps.

Kemp chuckles darkly. "Cute," he offers, "but that's not how this game works."

"I'm only playing one game," Massie retorts. She slams her fist down on the end of the fork, presses the utensil deeper into his hand. "And it's not yours. Fuck your perfect victory."

"Massie," Cam begins, warningly, "take the fork out of his hand."

She stands, throwing her hair over her shoulder. "His other one works perfectly fine. He can do it. I'm going to go find my new _allies_."

Kemp's eyes narrow, darken, at the word, at her movements. He looks like he wants to say something more but thinks better of it. He pulls the fork out his hand, weighs it in his palm.

When the door shuts closed behind her, he throws it, lets it embed itself in the wood.

 **…**

There are two notes on her bed when she returns from her walk. She hasn't really gone to talk to Four, not even really sure if she's interested in their alliance, but it's tradition, it's expected; it's a clear shot of eliminating half the competition. And it's fun to get under Kemp's skin like that, to watch him break apart. For a strong kid, he's so embarrassingly sensitive.

The first: an apology from Kemp, and a rose, pink. His handwriting is terrible but the words are easy to read. _Of course I won't kill you first. We have to make a spectacle. We can team up with Four, but only until half the the tributes are gone, then it's me and you against the world, baby._

The second, from Cam, has her more confused than Kemp's hypocritical babbling. _I know you've known him your whole life, but do not trust him. Not even in the alliance._

She rips it into little, tiny pieces, and throws it into the fire, just to be safe.

 **…**

She hardly pays attention to the individual scores recap. Doesn't find a reason to care, not when she's so effectively shown off how good of a tribute she is.

She notices Two's scores, tens across the board, and finds herself flushing at the picture they use of the male tribute from Four (twelve, twelve, _twelve_ , like her). She's just as confused as the rest of them when the girl from Twelve matches Kemp's score, and is concerned by the calculating looks the kids from Six both seem to wear.

When it's over, and the anthem has played, Massie goes back to mulling over her favorite Victors' strategies, and Kemp flips over their dining room table.

Cam sighs. Fawn wipes her hands on her training pants, though Massie hasn't seen her train in any of them in the time they've been here, and gets up to follow him.

 **…**

She's never trusted Kemp, not once. She's not going to start now, not when he'll be given the opportunity to kill her in a few days' time.

But that doesn't stop the hollowness that fills her bones, the disappointment that replaces the blood in her veins. She won't say she's nervous, but she won't say she's not, either. It's a conundrum.

 **…**

"Be careful, those dual-ended spears are vicious." Derrick is in her personal space again, like he has been all week, and his fingers move behind her ear. She slaps them away. "Sorry," he says, though his smile says otherwise, "may I?"

She's unsure what to say. He takes that positively.

"You've nicked the skin here," he tells her. His fingers come back bloody. "How did you get this thing"—which is significantly taller than she is—"back there?"

"Talent," she says.

He sighs, and she ignores the fondness she hears in the sound. Boys always get attached.

"Come on." He grabs her wrist. "Ripple's really good at first aid."

 **…**

Later, the seat to her left is filled by Kemp, not with the Four boy, who has taken to becoming her shadow. To sparring with her. To eating with her. To making her laugh, smile, despite the horrors that face them.

He slips into the room, Derrick, a bruise blooming along his cheekbone, his eye swelling shut, and avoids her gaze.

For the days they remain at the Capitol, he keeps to himself and his district partner.

 **…**

Massie is ashamed to admit it, but she puts on a show, hoping to get _something_ out of him. He's too stoic for his own good. She purposely asks her Glam Squad for something a bit more risqué than they were planning on putting her in, bats her lashes and smiles, murmurs _please please please_.

Jakkob knows it's pointless to fight her. The rest fall quite easily.

She convinces the others that this may as well be the last thing she'll ever get to wear besides the Capitol-regulated tribute bodysuit. They sigh sadly, literal fucking _tears_ in their eyes, and quickly disperse, creating a look that does not necessarily showcase the District persona she is supposed to cultivate.

But she is supposed to be beautiful, to have bite beneath her shine. There has to be a reason she's there.

They make her into a ruby with high waisted red dress pants and toned ab muscles gleaming with glitter. A tube top the same color as the pants wraps around her chest. A brilliant diamond choker wraps around her throat. Her hair is in loose waves, cascading around her face, and her makeup—

Her makeup reminds them how vicious she is. Sharp wings, and full lips as dark as the liner. A dab of bright red lip gloss settles atop it, on the pillow of her bottom lip, giving off the appearance of blood. She has instructions to rub her lips together at a certain time, she'll know when, to give off the air of a predator. A pretty, pretty predator.

It's not what they will expect from One; it's an outfit that belongs to Two, to bloodthirsty, dirty murderers, people who live for the thrill of the Games, or the lives of the guards they turn to as careers. But Two is, for some reason, trying to sell Skye as a doll, probably like one of those that come alive at night and terrorize people, killing them swiftly. Like a horror movie.

And no one can stop Massie Block. They cannot tell her no, not with a father like William, a mother like Kendra. She's spent her whole life listening to recaps of their Games in excruciating detail at the dinner table. Just because she lives in One does not mean she can't survive the Academy in Two.

(She'd destroy them.)

(She needs to remember that.)

(She is not here to be Kemp Hurley's glorious final kill.)

( _Remember._ )

There's time before the interviews start, so she straps on her heels, black, and traipses from her room. The other tributes are starting to arrange themselves in a line, making last minute conversation with their mentors and escorts, hoping for some tips to enthrall the crowd.

A hush settles over them as she glides by, practically the only one comfortable in her shoes. The boy from Six, all calculating in his promo pictures, looks like he's swallowed his tongue. Landon from Two eyes her like a meal, links his fingers behind his back, smirks.

"What," Fawn says, her hair in some crazy Capitol crown of braids, rubies and diamonds and pearls placed perfectly within the nest, "is this?"

Massie wonders if the jewels on Fawn's head are being used to tie her new outfit together. Wonders if, perhaps, she hadn't really needed to beg for a change. Wonders if this was their intention all along. She never saw the original look.

"You don't like it?" Massie pouts, careful not to smudge her lipstick.

Fawn is dumbstruck. "You look like a slut," she decides.

Massie knows she does not, but that does not stop her from wishing she could punch her in the face.

"Thank you," she coos instead. "You look… nice." The pause is deliberate.

"You weren't supposed to wear this," her mentor continues, fighting a snarl. "I told your team—"

"And they made something else." Massie shrugs. "This is the last chance I'll have at procuring sponsors. One last chance to _dazzle_. Right?" She delights in the way Fawn's face reddens. "This will do just fine."

"I hate you," the blonde hisses.

Has there ever been a trainee-mentor pairing worse than this? Massie thinks this over. Perhaps a better mentor would have prepared her for the Games differently, but Fawn merely spent most of her time trying to intimidate her and falling over her feet for Kemp. As it's been with every girl Massie's entire life, which is kind of gross because Fawn is _actually_ much older than them. She's older than Cam, too.

She's determined to make herself more than an afterthought compared to Kemp. Even if she has to die at his hand, she'll make sure they remember her.

Fawn evidently does not like to be ignored and snaps Massie out of her thoughts with a, "Go find Cam and go over your talking points."

Massie doesn't. She doesn't need help making people love her.

Instead, she waits, but she doesn't have to wait long.

She feels it when he notices her, like an electric shock, like a jarring fall in her training. It settles in her belly, simmers there.

They do not make eye contact. They do not interact.

There is nothing but a low whistle, and that, too, clings to her. She wears his appreciation like a second skin, allows herself a smug twist of the lips, and lines up ahead of them.

First interview, first impression: They'll never forget her now.

 **…**

And they don't.

No one else compares.

 **…**

Even Fawn, as surly as ever, has to agree she's done well.

Watching the recap of the interviews in the safety of their rooms, Massie hardly recognizes herself. She's _that_ good.

There are flirty tosses of her hair, witty one liners, and coy winks to the audience. Her favorite part, though, is some random catcall she receives when she arches her back _just so_ as she describes her weapon of choice, body subconsciously melding into perfect stance. And when she musses up her lips, the roar of the crowd is enough to keep her preening for months. She's perfect.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Kemp's knuckles turn white, clenching against the arm of his chair. He's charismatic, but she's won their hearts this time around.

Another thing she likes: the gauze around his hand. Evidently Fawn and Cam did not decide to heal the wound she inflicted on him. It gives her some satisfaction, knowing she's harmed his otherwise flawless physique.

It's not like Kemp isn't good up there. He is. He's got that hard, angry angle going for him. No smiles, no quips. Just pure muscle and might—and it works for him. Merri-Lee Marvil sing-songs about the perfect pairing of District One: beautiful and strong, charming and mysterious. They are everything the Capitol wants them to be, everything the Capitol strives for.

Layered, but easy to read.

They think they know them. They think Massie will use her sex appeal as a weapon. They think Kemp will use his hands to rip his enemies to pieces.

They think they're right.

Later, they'll find out they are wrong.

Two's tributes are just as memorable, just lesser. Skye perfects the doll role, sweet and girly, with just enough fire. She twirls in her dress at the end of her interview and the audience cheers. She blows a kiss, and they can see her mentor, Alicia, smirk as the Capitolites swarm her, whispering in her ear before the next tribute ascends the stage. She's an enigma; surely she is something else under there, but what? They are dying to put their money where their mouths are and find out. Massie is not concerned, if Cam's calm demeanor and lists are anything to go by.

Personally Massie thinks Landon is an idiot, has thought that since they met. He's all brawn and little brain, and he's duller than Kemp, who at least has more than one coherent thought. It's clear Landon is a stereotypical Two: itching to get blood on his hands. He may not even wash them if he wins.

Kemp exits the room after that, uninterested in the remaining interviews. He's convinced himself his biggest threat is Landon and from what he sees, it seems he's already figured out how to best him. Massie's heard him talking to Cam and Fawn, asking if there's any way he can make the big duel between the two of them instead of him and Massie. There's always a beat of silence, as if they are waiting for her to arrive, and then there is _if she's eliminated before him, yes, but you know how the story must unfold—_

She wants to take their story and shove it up their asses.

The girl from Four sits down delicately on screen. Massie tucks her legs beneath her, rests her head on a pillow. Ripple plays the little girl part so well Massie almost believes she's as innocent as she says, but then the flint in her eyes reappears, the same from her Reaping. It's still her most redeeming quality and Massie has watched her train all week.

And then Derrick appears. His full name is Derrick Harrington, which she must've known, after studying the Reaping so closely, but she hadn't remembered.

District Four is known for fishing and Derrick's dressed like a pretty boy about to set sail on some lavish boat. His pants are pastel pink, his shirt this chalky white with the top four buttons unbuttoned. The way they styled his hair makes him look like he's spent all day on the beach. His skin fucking _pops_.

She thought she was good, but he's better. She hates to admit it.

He drops jokes that are actually funny, makes sheepish look attractive, and somehow, while making himself relatable, proves he's as deadly as the rest of them. He even does that thing that boys do, casually rolls up the sleeves of his shirt while speaking, slowly showing off the tendons and veins in his forearms.

Girls like that. It appears Capitol women (and men) do, too.

Massie can see the sponsors rolling in for him. It irritates her to no end.

 _Twelve_ , she remembers him saying, mocking her.

"Abeley was easier to figure out," Kemp snaps, throwing her feet off the couch and dropping onto the cushion as far away from her as possible. "I can't believe I wasted time learning his tells and strengths."

"How did you manage to find those out?"

"How did he beat him out?" Kemp continues, as if he hasn't heard her. "He's big, I'll give him that, but he's not as—"

She knows he's going to say _good_ so she beats him to the punch. "No, he's not," she says, "he's clearly better."

Kemp's hands ball up into fists. He looks like he wants to hit her but doesn't. Instead, he says, meanly, "You would think that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't think I haven't seen you," he murmurs. "The both of you. He flirts with you constantly and you just let him. You encourage it."

"Aw." Massie prods at him with her toes. "Are you jealous?"

"Of course I am," Kemp answers, meeting her gaze. There is nothing there, just his intense rage, always hiding beneath the surface. "You're _mine_."

"Yours," she repeats, a tiny thrill surging through her body.

His hand twitches as he lifts it, and he steadies it, holding it flat in front of him, before gently wrapping it around her ankle. She wonders if her heartbeat can travel that far, if he can feel it race.

"Mine," he repeats. "My district partner. My ally. My—" He cuts himself off, looking pained, and Massie holds her breath. "My beautiful, perfect kill. Do you want to know how I'm going to do it?"

Massie deflates. Lets out that breath she can't believe she even held. _Of course_.

"No," she answers, shaking his hand off her. She tries to bring her legs closer to her, to make herself smaller, to contort herself into a position that's uncomfortable enough to punish herself for her weak feelings.

"Probably for the best," he agrees.

He doesn't let her pull away from him, splays his hand against her leg, runs it slowly up until it's against her thigh.

"Stop," Massie says.

"Come on," he shoots back, and he's not even fucking looking at her, gaze glued to the interviews from District Six, and she's annoyed at her traitorous heart for revving up again when he's not even paying attention to her. "I know you want this."

She wants to move, she really does, but part of her also doesn't. Whatever she is, whatever he is, and whatever _this_ is—it's the last time anyone will touch her like this. She's going to die in that arena.

Still, she can't help but shoot back: "You were just complaining about that kid from Four."

"I'm used to you flirting with me," Kemp says. "I've seen the way you look at me."

"I don't _look at you_ —"

"You look at me." He finally turns his head, meets her eyes, and smirks. "I punched him in the face for touching you. He doesn't come near you anymore because he's scared of me."

 _He's not_ , Massie thinks. _He's just smart._

"He knows you're mine. I know you're mine." He slides his fingers under the leg of her shorts, caresses her hip bone. "You know it, too, so why won't you admit it? Why won't you embrace it?"

Her heart is doing that thing again, where it thump, thump, _THUMPS_ , and Kemp can feel it now. He takes that as an answer in itself, shifts himself onto his knees.

Massie thinks about Fawn's subtle (and not so subtle) threats, thinks about the jokes Derrick made during his interview, thinks about Skye and Landon and how they'll probably try to kill her as soon as the alliance breaks. She thinks about how Kemp's not wrong, how she's always wanted this but never allowed herself to acknowledge it fully. She thinks, again, about how this is the last time she'll be touched like this and how, if she has to choose someone to do it, she wants it to be him.

Kemp reads this all on her face and pulls her closer to him so they're chest to chest. "I won't let anyone hurt you," he says, and it would be nice, romantic, even, if it weren't for what follows. "I've claimed you. Everyone knows that. The only person that gets to hurt you is me."

She sighs, burning inside out from her anger ( _how could she be so stupid?_ ), presses her palms to his shoulders, and pushes. He's startled enough that he's forced back, his mouth no longer hot against her neck.

She thinks about Cam's note, thinks about what was written between the lines. _Do not trust him._

"No," she tells him, voice hard and sure and deadly. "I am no one's but my own, and I get to decide who hurts me." She kicks at him, trying to further the distance between them. Her skin tingles and crawls where he touched her, where she _relished_ in that touch. "Guess what? It's not you."

 **…**

She will _not_ die in that arena. She will be victorious.

 **…**

She escapes to the roof.

Tomorrow they will be injected with a tracking device. Tomorrow they will be dropped off in some sick fuck's creation, left to fend for themselves. Tomorrow the world will watch them kill each other off for sport until only one is left standing, a testament to their strength, their perseverance. A punishment to them all for the rebellion years ago.

Tonight, though—

Tonight she can look at the stars.

 **…**

A hand jostles her awake.

"Hey," someone whispers. It's a voice she knows. "Hey," they say again. "Get up. This isn't a very comfortable place to sleep."

Massie grumbles something, nuzzles her head against this arm, almost like a cat. Maybe if she does this enough, they'll stop bothering her. She can still see the dream she's having, and it's so nice, and normal, that she doesn't want to lose it.

"Block," the voice says exasperatedly. "I can't just pick you up and drop you off in your bed. Get up."

"Mmrrph," she replies smartly.

"You'll have plenty of opportunities to sleep on the floor tomorrow," they continue. "Up."

"Oh my god," Massie mumbles, blinking. "You are so _fucking_ —"

He comes into focus, illuminated by the moon, the stars.

"Fuck."

"I mean, sure," Derrick Harrington of District Four agrees, that familiar lopsided grin on his face. Is it always there? Is he ever unhappy? What the fuck. "Nice to see you, too."

She scrambles into a sitting position, wipes at her eyes, presses the heels of her palms against her forehead. "What are you doing here? What time is it?"

"A little after two," answers Derrick, dropping from his crouch. "I couldn't sleep."

"Yeah, I—"

"Don't agree with me," he interrupts. "You were just out cold."

Massie rolls her eyes. "I wasn't going to say that."

Derrick quirks a brow.

"Fine," she relents, caught. "I just needed to get away for a bit."

"I'll walk you back to your floor," Derrick offers when she yawns, large and loud.

"No." She pushes herself up. "I want to train."

"You're dead on your feet."

"All the more reason to do it," she retorts. "I highly doubt I'll be well rested for the next two weeks. Might as well see what I can do."

It doesn't dawn on her to ask if he's coming until she's at the door. She turns, mouth opening, but realizes she doesn't have to. He's already following her.

 **…**

Massie imagines the dummy's head is Kemp's, and heaves a sword that's heavier than she is at his throat.

She imagines the hands are his, trailing up her leg, touching her, and aims tiny knives at all ten of his fingers.

She charges and kicks, slamming both her feet against the chest, allowing herself a moment of incoordination, falling on her back in a heap.

She itches to take another blade, a sharper, longer one, to rip the mouth off the dummy's face, head rolling a few feet away from the neck. She wants to remove Kemp's ability to talk, his words, his desires, his assumption that she is his.

His to play with.

His to do with what he pleases.

His to murder, to make himself the best.

The dummy does not have a mouth for her to slice off, so she settles on getting up, prying the weapons from the dummy's fingers—they all hit their target; if this were really Kemp, he'd be beautifully, magnificently without his hands—and twists her torso, closes her eyes, lets those same knives go flying.

When she looks, they've all hit their target, except one.

She snarls, stomps over, pulls it out, flings it over her shoulder.

"You've been slacking in training," Derrick observes from where he sits, meticulously tying and untying knots. It's a stupid skill to have, Massie thinks. "Why?"

"Why not?" she replies.

"You're a Career," he says. "You volunteered. We know you're good enough to be here, so there's no point in hiding your strengths. Not like the other districts. There's no need to pretend you don't have a leg up."

"I haven't seen you do anything remotely impressive, except your mediocre wrestling, which," she sneers, lifting her nose, "is rather pathetic for someone of your stature."

He grins, that crooked thing again, and flings his rope. The knots are perfect. It can easily hold his weight if he wishes to demonstrate, and he does.

"You kill during the Games, not training," he returns, rather loftily.

"Right," she agrees, not actually agreeing.

Maybe he hears her disbelief in her tone despite the monotone in which she speaks, for he says, "And my weapon of choice is not an option here."

"And that would be?"

He smiles again, though he seems rather put out. "Doesn't matter," he answers. "It's not an option."

She wonders if he'll even be half of the formidable opponent he could be without this so-called weapon. Wonders just what he can do with it.

A number of blades, swords, spears fly through her brain, like she's flipping through a book, trying to find the right one. She can't see him with any of them, though, not Kemp's preferred sword, not her boomerang and knives, not Skye's bow and arrow, or even Landon's twin blades.

Her gaze hones in on those knots, the long, thick fingers he's using to heave himself up the rope.

He doesn't have the weapon he wants.

She wonders, with a shudder, what he can do with his hands. If he's holding back in wrestling, what else can those arms do? He's as big as Kemp, if not bigger, and Kemp is able to annihilate his competition with just his body.

If Derrick…

She finds herself watching him, impressed by the lithe way in which he moves. He can pull himself up that rope easily, swinging to push against the wall. He gets up quickly, flips, kicks off the ceiling, makes his way down.

"Were you a swimmer?" she asks.

"Everyone in Four is a swimmer," he retorts, nose wrinkling. "What a stupid question."

Massie sighs, rubs her blades against her pant leg until it shines. She looks at her reflection in it, purses her lips. "You don't have to be _rude_ ," she snips.

He throws himself down next to her, arm covering his face. She admires the muscles there, flicks her knife against her thumb. Blood oozes.

"You work out your irritation?"

"No," she says. She's saving it.

"Hm," he replies. "You never answered my question."

"You didn't give me a straight answer either."

"Maybe I will, if you tell me."

She most certainly cannot.

She is not going to tell him she's kept half of her skill a secret just to help Kemp shine, because she was told to, by her mentors and her trainers and her classmates. She doesn't tell him she's keeping secrets from Kemp—who has known her for years, can tell by the scrunch of her nose, the blink of an eye, when she's going to feign right instead of left—and is hiding other, deadlier skills that will give her a leg up.

She doesn't tell him that despite her bravado and swagger that she had resigned herself to being lesser than him. Convinced herself dying in the arena at Kemp's hand would be the best thing to do. Despite all the talk— _any Victor from One will do_ —it's Kemp they want.

If it were any other male tribute's year, they'd pick her to win. But it's not. Even her father agreed: His last words were _Do me proud, make it count._

If that's not a District One goodbye, she doesn't know what is.

Massie frowns, throws the knife again. It soars through Derrick's knotted rope, sticks to the wall farthest from her. The rope snaps, drops to the floor with a thud.

He pushes himself onto his elbows, huffs. "And you think _I'm_ rude?"

She smiles, cold and catlike.

No one knows she's this good with knives. No one but now Derrick. She finds she's not upset with this.

"The alliance," she says.

"You don't want it," he replies.

She licks her lips and does something she knows will not win her any favors. "Kemp doesn't," she tells him, and his lips turn nastily at the name ( _oooh, they do not like each other at_ all), "but I do."

"You do," he bleats.

"It's expected," she answers back, but her interest in the alliance is more than that. There's something he's hiding here, something she wants to uncover, and she'd rather be next to him when he decides to unleash it, not on the receiving end. "I like to follow rules."

Derrick snorts. "Right," he says, sparing a glance around the room they're technically no longer allowed in. "A real stickler, it looks like."

She doesn't respond.

"What does this mean then?" he asks instead. "You want it, but he doesn't?"

"Yes." She sighs. "It means—he'll do it, but he doesn't want it. He's probably just intimidated by you, but." She hesitates, because she shouldn't be doing this, should she? Shouldn't be betraying her partner, not yet. "I see it like this: we're going to be in an alliance, right, and he's either going to break it before it's time or kill you first and viciously once he decides it's over."

"I don't see the appeal here."

"I do." Massie rakes her gaze over his form. Strong. Sturdy. Long lasting. Another word tickles her brain but she ignores it, like she ignores the warmth in her belly. "I think it'll be good. Beneficial."

"Yeah, but in this situation I'm the one dying, not you."

"Here's the thing," she says, sticking her hand out. He looks at it, raises a brow. "I won't let that happen."

She prepares a whole speech to convince him of her strength, how she can manage to protect him until she's gone, has the words _knives_ and _boomerang_ and—

And—she doesn't have to.

He takes her hand, flips it so her palm is up, and presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist, essentially sealing their fates.

 **…**

When she goes back to her room to feign some semblance of sleep before she has to be up again—in, _fuck_ , less than two hours—she bumps into Kemp.

They make eye contact, this wide-eyed, surprised sort of thing, and she feels him zero in on her hair (a tangled mess), her cheeks (flushed from the adrenaline), her eyes (wild).

He smells like Skye's god awful perfume.

She smells like sweat.

He doesn't say anything to her, just breezes past. Massie waits until she hears his door close and lock and scurries to her own.

He threw a fucking _table_ because Four got a better training score than him. He threatened to break code and kill her first because she wanted the alliance.

She whips out the dagger she nicked from the training room and shreds her comforter. Her sheets.

All around her there are strips of glimmering fabric, feathers from her pillow. She sits, pretzel-style, in the middle of it all, holds her knife so tight it breaks her skin.

Then, silently, because she's not a brute like Kemp, who cannot move without making a sound, she exits again.

The elevator slides open, and she slams her palm against the button for the fourth floor, over and over, until she's surging up.

It's when she's standing in front of the door to District Four's apartment that she stops, contemplates just what the _fuck_ she's doing here, and leaves.

 **…**

Jakkob styles her hair in two tight French braids, just like in her promo pictures, and they hurt her head. He kisses her forehead, presses his fingers against his heart, says nothing as she shoots up out of sight.

 **…**

The injection hardly stings after all the time she's spent with her knives. She watches with a strange satisfaction as the tracking liquid enters her bloodstream, turns her veins neon, and travels up her arm.

Ripple, from Four, cannot contain her gasp at the sensation. It's then Massie remembers she is twelve, the youngest tribute this year. Derrick leans over to grab her free hand, squeezing.

Kemp and Landon sneer at what they think is obvious weakness.

Massie rolls her eyes, tries to offer up her nicest smile. It comes out as a grimace instead, her mouth not used to moving like that. Nice has never been necessary.

And now, hours away from the 74th Annual Hunger Games, nice won't be necessary ever again.


	2. Part Two: Murder

**_Glad to see people are interested in this and not just me. I'm going to aim to update weekly on Wednesdays._**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Two_

* * *

 **murder |** **ˈ** ** _mərdər  
_** noun  
 _the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another  
_ synonyms: killing, homicide, assassination, extermination, execution, slaughter, butchery, massacre

* * *

The countdown takes forever and no time at all.

One moment, she's balancing on the balls of her feet, her whole body vibrating with anticipation. The next, she's running, running, _running_ ; she can see what she wants, right there in the center of the Cornucopia.

She slides into a pile of weapons, wrestles the boomerang onto her back, tucks an array of knives into her jacket pockets, sharp and long and promising death.

There's a cannon.

Two.

She doesn't know who's perished, doesn't care. It's no one she's allied with, she knows. That'd be _embarrassing._

And, besides, she sees them: Kemp's looming form, terrorizing the kid from Eight, the one that mocked him. Landon's spear flies through the air with a whistle, gutting the male Seven. Skye cackles, distinguishable and hair-raising, and eliminates both tributes from Three.

Cannon.

Cannon.

Cannon. Cannon.

Six down. Ten minutes in.

The pair from Four are the only ones bothering with survival skills, shoving food and water in backpacks. Derrick stands behind Ripple, watches the competition with narrowed eyes. He's ready to remove anyone who gets too close to his partner.

Massie wonders if he'll be the one to get rid of her, or if he'll step aside and let someone else kill her.

For some reason, she can't get over her being twelve.

There is a flash of movement behind her, a rustle of grass beneath feet. The others must think of her as an easy target: pretty but dumb, just standing there, surveying the carnage, thinking about the age of her ally.

They are wrong.

It's not a pretty kill—those are for later—when she twists, moves her hand in a sharp, precise motion. Another cannon sounds before the body of the District Twelve girl falls. She dies still standing, blood running in rivulets down her front from her neck wound. It's hard to believe she scored well, since she's dead now, but that's what she gets for A) running towards the Cornucopia, and B) painting a target on her back. Should have kept her score in the middle ranges.

Massie looks at her, this semi-pretty, thin, blonde body, and shakes her head. Oftentimes outlier tributes think they can win it all because they're _different_ from everyone else. That doesn't matter. Careers always win. It's why they're called Careers.

Twelve is pathetic.

Massie kicks at her lifeless form with her shoe.

It lulls then, the killing. Kemp has officially removed all of Eight from the game, Skye and Landon have three kills under their belts, and Derrick has broken the Nine girl's neck with just his hands. He tosses her aside like a doll, bends down to help Ripple, and Massie bites down on her tongue to keep herself from shivering. His hands were _so_... She clears her throat and turns away, taking her eyes off the slope of Four's back.

The grass is stained red. Massie's fingers are sticky. She wipes her blade on her thigh.

They move together, though no one helps gather supplies. Derrick shoves rope in his own bag; Massie wonders what use he'll find for it here.

"Anyone here we particularly need to go after first?" Skye asks. "I want to draw it out. Make it last. Make it _fun_."

She looks at Kemp as she says—no, purrs—the last word and he grins back at her.

Will they air that? What they're insinuating? Is the Capitol that disgusting that they will partake in voyeurism? They're all _teenagers_ , despite how big and muscular and crazy they seem.

(Probably.)

(They've done it before.)

"We should find a place to camp," suggests Derrick. "Tend to our wounds. Eat."

"Not happening," says Kemp. "Not enough of them are dead."

"You will be," shoots Derrick, "if you don't stop and dress that cut on your leg."

Massie's gaze travels to Kemp's ripped pant leg. It's not too bad, just a superficial slice, but there's so much blood and she can't tell what is his and what isn't. It frightens her, she's ashamed to admit, that he's gotten hurt already, that he hadn't _noticed._ She swallows her whimper, flexing her fingers, closes her eyes to hide herself from the image of him injured, proud, dying.

"Massie," Kemp whines.

"We can camp here," she tells them, eyes still closed. "We've won it. Everyone else is gone."

"It's out in the open," Derrick argues.

"All the supplies and weapons are here," she tells him. "We're covered if anyone shows up."

"Even then," Landon adds, "we're the deadliest group. They're hiding from us. They won't risk coming here. They'd rather starve."

"Massie," Kemp says again.

She grits her teeth, steps over piles of gleaming silver, metal. Once she's at Kemp's side, he drops to the ground, lifts his leg. She knows what he wants—to show off that he's got the best partner, to demean her in the least obvious way possible.

Massie allows it, just this once. She needs to play the part before she turns into the bloodthirsty killer they're waiting for. She may not be from Two, but she will give Skye a run for her money. She really hopes she's the one that gets to kill her. Perhaps she'll ask Kemp for permission—for formality's sake.

(It most certainly has nothing to do with her fear gnawing at her insides. A dead Kemp is not a Kemp she wants to ever know, even if she will have to in order to win herself.)

Kemp's wound is easy to dress. All it needs is a good wipe down, a bit of ointment, and some gauze to keep it from getting infected. It will heal itself in no time. She is startled by her relief. She'd _seen_ it, known it was small, he'd be _fine_ , but touching it, cleaning it, deducing after science and fact had shown her he was going to be fine, that's what makes her slowly uncoil.

"The plan, then," Kemp wants to talk about, using her legs as a footrest. He reaches forward, tangles their fingers together, all for show, all for show, _all for show_. He doesn't care that she was just petrified. Neither does she, actually.

She does, though, because tributes from One, Two, and Four, they don't care about anyone but themselves, even in the alliance. They do not get _attached_. It is rule number one. So Massie chews on some dried fruit. Listens. Makes no suggestions. Wishes she could get away with breaking Kemp's thumb, rubbing mockingly against her knuckles.

 **…**

Like any Career alliance, they cannot agree on anything. There's a power struggle between Derrick and Kemp, obviously, and Skye refuses to even consider anything Ripple says, even if it is smart.

Massie's overheard her begging to kill her— _it'll look like an accident, or another tribute got her, I swear!_

Both Kemp and Landon refuse. It's too early for shit like that, they say. Wait a bit. Let's get the others first. There is strength in numbers.

 _Strength_? Skye cackles. _In that? As if._

On her end, Massie keeps her mouth shut and sharpens her boomerang blade. She practices her throws, working on precision and speed, and wishes they had left two at the Cornucopia if only for the image beheading both Skye and Landon creates in her mind's eye.

While Kemp comes to her for advice and to talk things out, he spends nights wrapped up in Skye, letting her use his arm as a pillow, his jacket as a second blanket. Massie finds it nauseating only because Skye seems ill-prepared for this. She should know how to stay warm, how to get comfortable, how to survive the fucking outdoors on minimal sleep. She's from _Two_ , for fuck's sake. She's playing games Massie should be; it's like at some point, without them speaking, they've switched roles.

Massie bites back a yawn, stretches herself out like a cat, and glances around their campsite. They finally moved away from the center of the arena, having no luck in hunting while they remained there. The other tributes are remarkably good at hiding, so they must go to them, but they've spent an awful lot of time just... sitting.

She mulls this over because it's odd as she catches Derrick's eye over their fire. He offers her a tired grin, inclines his head. She uses her own to say no.

Instead of taking the hint and going to sleep, he lifts himself up. Pads over to her. She sighs.

They have nothing to talk about. It's the dead of night, with only the owls as company, and speaking is out of turn now. She needs to be on high alert. Anyone can find them; anyone can get lucky. She tightens her grip on a knife, reaches out to feel for her boomerang at her side. Reliable.

"They'll manipulate the arena soon," he says, a soft breath of a sentence. It's so quiet Massie wonders if it will get picked up on camera. "There hasn't been a kill in days."

"I could kill you right now," Massie offers with a flash of her teeth. If the cameras weren't watching them before, they are now. "Give them what they want."

"You wouldn't dare. You'd have no one left to have an intelligent conversation with." Derrick's in her personal space now. He slips a hand in her coat, wrestles her fingers off the collection of blades she's hidden in the inside pockets. There's a surprised intake of breath as he pricks himself, like he isn't expecting that to happen. He should have.

"They're getting ready to kill Ripple," she tells him. "They're getting antsy. They'll break the alliance just for something to do."

"I know," says Derrick, "I won't let them."

"Is that wise?" she asks, and she doesn't mean it in a bad way, not really, it's just… "Protecting her all the time?"

He squeezes his fingertip, forces more blood out of the hole he carved into it. He watches that instead of looking at her. His voice is low. "She isn't supposed to be here. Someone else was supposed to volunteer in her place, but they didn't. I feel like—I don't know. Like she's my responsibility."

Massie feels her lips turn down in sympathy. Odd. "You can't protect her forever," she says. "Don't make your time in the Games all about her."

"I know," he replies, "but I can get her as far as possible. I have to _try_. I owe her that much. Besides," he adds, now cheeky, "while I'm protecting her, you'll be protecting me, right?"

They've never outrightly mentioned their own personal alliance, but they've been flirting around it. Like now, with him awake during her watch. And other times: she sleeps closer to him than she does Kemp, makes sure she's able to see him when he's on guard duty. She argues with Kemp for him; he divvies up portions of their food for himself, Ripple, _and_ her, and sits shoulder to shoulder with her as they eat. They both have this suicidal ritual of making sure the other is still alive if they wake up in the middle of the night, which can sometimes end with a knife to the leg or a hand squeezing an arm too tight. Derrick is sporting a different puncture wound on his calf, and she has a ring of bruises in the shape of his fingers on her bicep.

If those idiotic fans in the Capitol haven't figured it out yet, it is spelled out for them now.

Massie doesn't use words to answer his question. Rhetorical, of course, but... She can play it two ways, and right now, she's bored.

She takes hold of his wrist, notes the amount of blood he's accumulated in his absentminded squeezing—covering the tip, dark red and thick from all his prodding at it—and brings the finger to her lips. Her tongue darts out, testing, tasting, and then she takes the whole thing in her mouth. It's salty and tangy and somehow sweet, and she relishes in it, figuring she might as well remind the people at home, the _Sponsors_ , she's more than what they see.

He shifts and she looks up. His pupils are blown as he watches her mouth, knees digging into the dirt. With his free hand, he grips her chin just a touch too harshly, forces her head up with a strangled, " _Block._ "

"Hmm?" she replies, coy, because this is second nature. It's expected of her, of girls in District One. To be simpering. To manipulate big, brash men with a flutter of her lashes and a well-executed cross of the legs—and for all Skye's talks of _fun_ , she's just that: all talk, no action. At least Massie isn't _afraid_ of boys. Not like that.

They're closer than she remembers, his hot breath washing over her face. If she moves forward a millimeter, their lips will touch. She's grateful for the finger she's still lapping at, separating their faces, but the blood is slowing.

She decides the painful racing of her heart is due to the upsetting fact that this is the most fun she's had, the most engaged she's been, since they moved from the Cornucopia.

He says something she wants to forget immediately, hopes they haven't got the audio equipment to catch it, but if she knows anything about the Games and their Gamemakers, they're appealing to the masses by focusing closely on the look on his face and the shape of her mouth. Derrick tightens the grip on his hand on her chin, pulling his finger from between her lips. It makes a loud, wet popping sound, and she grins, feral and beautiful, and the gold in Derrick's eyes is eclipsed by his pupils. He moves to capture her mouth with his, entranced, but there's an unwelcome wind to their left and a thud.

 **…**

They do not kiss.

It's important to make that distinction.

 **…**

It's also important to note that the interruption is not a sneaking tribute, but rather—

"What," says Massie, hand still gripping her boomerang. Good thing she hadn't thrown it, had the foresight to check the situation before acting, or else it'd be lodged in her abdomen right now, and she'd bring humiliation to her district for killing herself.

Derrick shoots forward and Massie scowls, watching his back for him. "It's mine," he says, and he's got this crazed look on his face. This manic gleam in his eye. (From her, before, or from this?)

"Yeah, it's most certainly not for me," she retorts, eying the length of it.

He runs a finger almost lovingly—or _purposely_ lovingly, maybe—along a spike. His palm closes around the base, and he lifts it, looking all the while like he isn't heaving over fifty pounds with one hand.

He hasn't taken to a single weapon since they arrived. Has only used his hands to kill that one tribute that got too close to Ripple on the first day. Kemp has snickered about it with Landon, obviously, and Skye has murmured things like _doesn't have what it takes_. They think they're easy, the tributes from Four.

Watching him with this, Massie gets it. Massie understands. It's like an extension of his arm, this thing. A part of him. He didn't want to use anything else. Shouldn't have to. Kemp, and Landon, and Skye—they're wrong about Four. They're wrong about _him_.

"A trident," he finally explains. "My weapon is a trident."

"Fucking mermaid," Massie mutters, bending down to pick up the note that came with it.

 _Thank you.  
_ _—D  
_

She blinks at the two words, feeling like she should understand what this means but failing to see the bigger picture.

"Dune won the Games ten years ago," Derrick explains. He tosses the trident from one hand to the other, muscles flexing and clenching and... Massie clears her throat. "He's Ripple's older brother. It's not his year to mentor but because his sister was Reaped, he—he couldn't just abandon her, I guess. I wonder how he's managing it."

"Right." Massie remembers. Dune had been fifteen then, a little on the young side for a volunteer, and he didn't have the odds in his favor. But he was scrappy, and good with an array of weapons, and he surprised them all.

She watched that year religiously in her training, tried to memorize every single thing he did when she was younger. She still remembers how he cried on day eleven, hands caked with blood and suit damp with rain and covered with the insides of his latest kill. Something had snapped in him then, after he killed his district partner. It was like he was devoid of all emotion, a blank, murderous slate. Auto-pilot, he's been quoted with saying. ( _I worked on auto-pilot_. Then a flash of his teeth, glimmering under the stage lights.) It's how he won. He just... stopped. Stopped caring. For the next five days in that arena, he didn't care. And apparently, or so she heard, he hadn't cared in the five years that followed it.

Unless—

Unless your name was Ripple, and you were his sister.

Massie crumples the note in her fist and feels something foreign tug at her heart, forcing it down to her feet. Another confusing thought takes over her mind, a sliver of a thing she immediately shakes away: _maybe she should win._

"That was nice of him," is all she can manage, a croak, because _what?_

She wonders how the procurement of this weapon will change things to avoid thinking things that don't make any sense.

 **…**

She doesn't have to wonder long.

 **…**

He uses it that same night, maybe ten minutes after its arrival.

District Nine's male tribute is standing over Kemp and Skye. He's a slim sort of thing, hair too long and shoulders hunched like he's been bent in the same position for far too long. He's probably been hiding out, biding his time. He doesn't look like he's been eating much.

Massie doesn't move, kind of likes the sight before her. A second too long of inaction and this kid—this scared, crazed kid who shouldn't be able to get this close to a Career—will kill them both.

(Maybe.

He looks like he's shaking, like he's not sure what he wants to do. That's always the case with non-Career tributes. You either got it or you don't. You can't make yourself something you're not.)

Derrick hesitates for a second, and the people watching see what Massie does not: the disgust etched in his lip, the debate in his eyes. He doesn't want to do it. His thoughts match Massie's.

But, at his core, Derrick is a good person, so he will not break the alliance.

It's a fluid motion, the way he throws the trident. His shoulders bunch, his knees bend, and the golden weapon soars through the air. Nine hears it too late, turns his body to move, but the prongs impale him. It's a sickening sound, the way she can hear bones cracking and skin slicing and blood gushing, and the momentum and strength in Derrick's throw sends the kid flying back.

Their flight is stopped by a tree trunk. The trident vibrates harshly against the obstacle, enlarging the holes in Nine's chest, digging deeper, deeper, _deeper_ , seeming like it wants to go farther, like it has a mind of its own, and is upset it cannot continue its journey.

The tribute is stuck there, feet dangling, his entire front red. Bloody.

Massie gasps. She doesn't mean to.

A cannon sounds.

Several Capitolites surge the District Four mentors, throwing money and sponsorships at Derrick.

He marches forward, pulls the trident out of the body. Nine sags to ground, dead as shit, and Massie clenches her fists together.

 _Oh_ , she was right about wanting to be on his side. That was fucking _beautiful._

And then her mind betrays her again: _I'd love to be killed by him._

 ** _…_**

Can he tell?

Can he tell something has shifted?

Can _she_?

 **…**

Again the viewers see something she does not. Her father breaks the stem of his wine glass. The mindless residents of the Capitol titter to one another. The president halts his Gamemaker for a moment. From the outskirts, Angela Sawyer writes a letter.

 **…**

"When did Nine die?" Kemp asks, munching on a rabbit leg Skye has killed, skinned, and cooked.

Massie stretches out her legs and reaches forward to touch her toes like she's in her Academy-regulated physical education class. "When you were asleep," she simpers, knowing full well Kemp's eyes are on her ass. "Derrick killed him." She says his name throatily, purposely seductive.

Kemp's grip snaps the bone he's gnawing on.

"How'd you do it?" asks Landon. He's fascinated by the stories of their kills. He's asked each of them to tell him about their first time, lik their first time wasn't in this arena. (It wasn't.) "Can't possibly have been with your hands, that kid was practically in pieces."

"Marvelous," Skye coos, running her fingers through Derrick's hair, letting them linger a moment too long. "A real work of art."

Massie watches her with narrowed eyes.

Derrick politely shifts out of the way, making it seem like he's looking for more water when he's really just trying to get out of her clutches. He stands, grabs a canteen, and claims he is going to check the perimeter.

"He's not really a team player," Skye muses, with an appreciative tilt of the head. "Is he?"

"This isn't exactly a team game," shoots back Massie.

"Since you know so much about him," Kemp hisses, tossing the remains of his food into the pile of sticks they used for a fire, "how'd he do it— _if_ he did it? He hasn't exactly been pulling his weight around here."

"Knives," she automatically supplies.

Derrick hasn't mentioned his trident nor has he left it out for all to see. It's a secret from the rest, so Massie honors that, which is very unlike her, but she coughs that up to him being the only member of this god forsaken alliance she actually trusts.

"Knives," Kemp repeats, deadpan. " _Knives_ did that?"

The body is no longer there; when the hovercraft came, the winds and the noise woke the rest of them up, and they had scrambled to their feet. Skye shrieked, unhappy with how close that kid had gotten and Kemp merely demanded _why didn't you wake me?_

Derrick shrugged, said it was his watch, so why would he? Did they not trust him?

Massie nods. "He killed him with the kid's own weapons," she explains.

"Where are they now, these so-called knives?"

Landon devours the rabbit he's still holding. "He gut a kid with _knives_?" he demands. There's meat stuck between his teeth.

"The long ones," explains Massie and she's growing tired of this interrogation. "They snapped when it was done. It was very"—she thinks of the trident, of how Nine had no real chance of surviving once Derrick threw it—" _efficient_." She hopes no one sees the shiver that runs through her at the recollection. Efficient is not the right word.

Breathtaking. The way he threw the trident was _breathtaking_. She wants to replay it in her mind over and over, so she does, stretching out her body to keep limber.

Ripple moves closer to her, offers her a piece of fruit in the same blasé way Derrick does when he makes sure she's eating enough. It looks like the young girl doesn't want to finish her snack and there's no point in being wasteful here, but Massie sees it in her eyes. The question she's asking.

"Thanks," she tells her, sitting up, and she hopes she hears the unspoken _yes._ Ripple blinks and she knows.

"Massie," Kemp says, loud and commanding. She breaks away from her comfortable silence with Ripple, looks up at his towering form with barely concealed annoyance. He's been terrible here, not like he was any better outside of the Games, but something in this arena, with these people, makes him worse. More self-righteous. "We need to talk."

She quirks a brow, doesn't get up.

" _Now_ ," he snaps.

Skye giggles behind him, where she's stringing her bow. Massie swallows her sneer. It tastes like the apple she's munching on.

"Fine. Talk."

"Not here." He grabs her shoulder, lifts her onto her feet. Massie slaps at him; she doesn't like to be _manhandled_ , fucking thank you.

He strides away, all proud shoulders and confident swagger, like someone who has already won even though the Careers are slow going on the kills and the other tributes are remarkably good at self-preservation this year. He expects her to follow, no questions asked, so she waits until he's a good distance away before joining him, if only to irritate him.

His impatience is loud. It's the snapping of twigs, the crackling of leaves. It's his cockiness: not masking any sounds because he knows, regardless of placement, weaponry, or sleuth, he will come out victorious.

"This is getting boring," is his way of greeting.

"We're literally finishing up eating and then going hunting," Massie tells him. "Wait a minute for once."

"There's too many of them left," he mutters, sulkily.

"Eight," Massie tells him, "excluding us."

Kemp frowns. "That's four too many than we should be at. What's going on? Why is it so slow?"

"Dunno," says Massie. "But today will be different."

"You're right," agrees Kemp, with this smile on his face that makes Massie uneasy. It's hard to read, that look—it's one he's used multiple times in training when he's decided to stray from his usual techniques. But here, in this grove of an arena, what is he straying from? "It will be different."

His face softens as he looks at her, like he's never seen her before, or like he's _finally_ seeing her, and he reaches forward, cups her face. Three weeks ago, Massie would have gasped at this sweet contact, would have relished it, played it over and over in her mind.

Now, however, she wants to pull away. Wants to sink her teeth into his flesh. His words ring in her head, circling that tiny part of her brain that ignores all logic and still has a crush on him—

 _Mine._

 _I've claimed you._

 _My beautiful, perfect kill._

 _Everyone knows it._

 _Do you want to know how I'm going to do it?_

His thumb brushes against her cheekbone. She fights the urge to close her eyes.

When he pulls his hand away, all of her senses return and she's infuriated. She can tell he saw her reaction, that her feelings, however traitorous and unwanted they may be, are written all over her face. It's getting harder and harder to mask them here. She's drained—she feels her exhaustion in her lashes, in her teeth, in whatever remains of her personality. She's never felt so betrayed by her own body before.

"You have dried blood all over you," Kemp tells her. That manic, lust-filled look sneaks onto his (perfectly clean) face. He's always been attracted to mess, to gore, to the beauty of blood and pain and bruises. It's how he loves, _if_ he loves. Then he sighs, this deep thing, full of longing. His hands grab on to her elbows, pull her close so they're chest to chest, and he mumbles, "Fuck, I can't wait to kill you."

She's going to fucking _choke_ him—

"KEMP!" Skye shouts, and it's gleeful. "KEMP! MASSIE!"

His head snaps up, eyes dark, narrowed, looking towards their campsite.

Massie is relieved she does not have to spend another second in this sick embrace.

"DERRICK BROUGHT US A GIFT!" she continues to yell. "MASSIE! KEMP!"

"I also can't wait to get rid of her," Kemp grumbles.

Massie quirks a brow. "I thought you liked her," she says. "You've seemed very… cozy."

He grins. "Just to keep her at bay. Bitch is crazy, I don't need her slitting my throat in my sleep. Don't worry," he adds, bumping her shoulder, "I'd never replace you."

"You plan on killing her?"

Kemp whistles lowly, heading in the direction of Skye's happy cheers. "I was…" He looks over his shoulder. "But I can spare her, if you'd like to put on a show."

Massie feels another of her defining characteristics chip away, falling to the forest floor as she strolls after him. "I'd love to," she replies, because she would, and she knows exactly how she will do it. "Thank you for this opportunity."

He waits for her to catch up, throws an arm over her shoulder. "Anything for you, my love."

The word _love_ is tainted with malice, with his desire to end her life. Massie ignores it, lets him hold her into his side, and fights down all of her urges to stab him with the knives concealed in her jacket. How is it possible to hate him so much but still feel so oddly attracted to him? Is she crazy? Is she insane?

More importantly: has she been insane this entire time?

She doesn't get a chance to think this over because they enter their clearing, and the gift Derrick has bestowed upon him is none other than the male tribute from District Twelve.

And it seems Skye and Landon have already begun having their fun.

Derrick's handiwork is in the knots—on the rope she criticized the first day—around the kid, who is tied to the very same tree the Nine boy was impaled on. Landon has his blade against his neck, and Skye is giggling, nasty and grotesque, brushing her hands over the boy's face, through his hair.

"What's your name?" she coos. Of course she doesn't know anyone else's name.

Twelve bucks against his restraints and bares his teeth. He's pale, so, so pale, but what do you expect from District Twelve? They _mine_ there.

He doesn't want to answer her question, eyes darting wildly for some sort of escape. There is none, not if Derrick made those knots.

Massie tries to remember this kid's name. She should know it. She'd analyzed them all when they were Reaped.

Miles Burke. That's his name.

He actually fucking growls when he sees her. "You," he hisses.

"Yes, me," she returns, slipping from Kemp's hold. "Nice to see you."

"I saw what you did to Claire," he tells her.

"Claire," she repeats, testing out the name. "Who is Claire?"

(She knows.)

He bucks again, trying to find purchase, trying to get his foot against the trunk and push. Derrick's knots are too tight, too strong. The rope chafes against his wrists, his ankles, his stomach, which they can see—taut and weak, malnourished from a life in the poorest district of all.

"My district partner," he snarls. "Blonde? Tall?"

"Hm." Massie pretends to deliberate, acts like she hasn't killed only one person herself so far. "Sort of pretty?" she asks. "Definitely out of your league?"

" _Bitch_ ," Miles snaps at her.

Kemp tuts, knocks Landon's blades away, presses the tip of his sword to Miles' neck. "That's no way to talk to a lady," he says smoothly. "Apologize."

"No." The boy grunts as Kemp applies even more pressure. The skin breaks. Blood blossoms. "Why should I? She _killed_ Claire."

"And she'll kill you, too," murmurs Kemp, "if you'd like."

Massie can't tell if the suggestion is directed towards her or Miles, but she answers. "Let's make it fun, then."

A smirk grows on Kemp's face, and he steps back. "How, baby?"

To his right, Skye stiffens.

Massie lets that settle, that jealousy, making vicious eye contact with the girl, and says, coldly, "Let him go."

"Go?" Landon demands. "Let him _go_?"

She ignores him. "I'm giving you a five second head start," she tells Miles, taking a delicate step back. "Run. I will deliberate my weapon choice."

Kemp laughs, loud and harsh, and breaks the ties with one slash of his sword.

Miles doesn't waste a second, probably hoping he can outrun Massie—but he can't—and Massie makes a show of taking her boomerang off her back. She buffs it with her sleeve, makes it shine so she can see her reflection. Kemp's right: she's covered in blood. It's probably Nine's, though she didn't realize she'd been so close.

She doesn't get to move until after Kemp grabs her face, palms against her cheeks. The pressure hurts, like he's slapped her, but she doesn't care. She can feel her heart in her throat, can feel the adrenaline replacing the blood in her veins. Her energy is coiling inside her, ready to be let loose—

And Kemp claims her mouth the same way he's claimed the rest of her all his life. " _Mine_ ," he reminds her.

She slams her palm into his throat and leaves him coughing, a reminder that she is _hers_.

 **…**

She runs.

 **…**

Miles hasn't gotten very far. The ropes made him weak, and it looks like Derrick may have actually gotten one swipe with his trident in—which begs the question: why had he stopped? Why had he dropped Miles off for them? _Where is he_?

He staggers, hits a tree with his shoulder, trips. He doesn't let himself fall, though— _commendable_ —and races as fast as his limp will let him. Massie can see the hole in his pant leg, the blood that's streaming out of a wound the size of a trident's prong.

Again Massie wonders, fleetingly, about Derrick, but she has a one track mind now, and it cannot be filled with the tall, muscular boy. It's only focused on _kill kill kill_ and she feels like she understands what it's like to be a predator hunting prey. And that's what this is, isn't it, at its core? Survival of the fittest. Turning children into animals.

So, she settles on being one. She finds it is rather easy.

 _Kill_

She stops where she is, lets him wander farther. Her ears prick, and she listens, hears him stumble. He races through leaves and branches and startles a group of birds.

Massie doesn't follow him. She darts left and runs around the other way, leaping from tree root to tree root, as silent as a mouse. She will surprise him when they meet, in approximately one minute, and Massie will end him.

She sees him, just ahead, and she cocks her head. Smiles.

For the sake of good entertainment, for the sake of sponsors, Massie presses a kiss to the steel of her boomerang, aims, and flicks her wrist just _so._

It cuts through the air and tree branches swiftly, rustles a leaf or two—nothing too conspicuous in this makeshift forest.

 _Kill_

Massie watches and lets out a disappointed huff when the boomerang flies past Miles' ear. It makes a sound when it goes by, she knows from years of training with it, and he hasn't even noticed. How sad. How… _inexperienced._

She runs after it, wants him to see her before he dies.

And see her he does: Miles lets out an embarrassing squeak, tries to speed up.

"I wouldn't," she advises, sickly sweet.

"I'm not going to let you kill me!"

"You can't _let me_ do anything." She laughs. "I do what I want."

Miles lets out an incredulous breath. "But you let that kid tell you what to do? Let him tell you to kill me?"

"He didn't tell me to do anything," Massie says. "He only knew what I wanted."

"Yeah," Miles breathes, "and what's that?"

Massie's grin widens. "To win."

 _Kill_

There's a moment where it looks like he's going to answer, but.

 _But_.

The boomerang buries itself in Miles' neck. His eyes widen, more white than anything else, and he lets out a gurgle, choking on words he never got to say. His leg steps back, his hand claws up at his face before his body recognizes what's just occurred.

She strides forward.

He falls, trying, in vain, to gather more oxygen, to save himself.

Massie crouches near his face. She reaches out, presses the pads of her fingers to the blood at his collarbone, swirling patterns up and down his neck. She rubs her fingers together, marvels in the warmth, and tugs the boomerang out of him.

"Don't _ever_ ," she warns, "think that I let someone else control me."

He blinks at her. Blinks and blinks and blinks.

His breathing is slowing.

 _Kill_

The blood is still gushing. She hasn't quite severed the artery there, so she knows this is slow. Painful. She wants it to be, doesn't want him to have an easy death. He'd called her a bitch, after all, and she hasn't done anything particularly bitchy to him in all the time she's known him.

It feels like an hour later that the cannon booms, high over head. Birds nesting in a tree nearby squawk and fly away, unsettled by the noise.

Massie takes one last look at him, smiles serenely, and stands.

When she returns to camp, Derrick is there, frowning at his length of rope, now considerably shorter.

Skye is missing, but she can hear her archery practice a few feet over. She is _incredibly_ fucking loud; District Two better work on that for next time. It's so embarrassing.

"Twelve give you a hard time?" Landon drawls, squinting up at the clear sky. "Took you long enough."

Massie barely acknowledges him. "Does it _look_ like he gave me a hard time?" she snaps. "He was practically crippled as it was. I just lulled him into a false sense of security. It's how you _hunt_." She tosses her boomerang into Kemp's lap. "This is dirty. Clean it for me."

Kemp lifts a brow. "Clean this," he says slowly, "for you. Me?"

"Yes, you," she hisses. She doesn't forget the stunt he pulled, the shit he's said to her. All for the sake of the Capitol, he'll tell her when she asks. "I can't have a dirty blade, can I? It'll rust."

He blinks. "You did take any awfully long time," he murmurs. "Are you sure he didn't make things hard for you?"

Massie presses her foot against his knee. "I said he didn't," she snaps. "Do you see any wounds? Even a scratch?" She bends down, puts her mouth as close to his ear as she can. "I made him suffer," she whispers. "I watched him bleed out. That takes time, darling. Not all of us are unintelligent brutes." She nips the lobe of his ear, straightens back up. "Now clean my boomerang."

Kemp is slightly dazed when she waltzes away, headed straight towards Four. Derrick is fixing his rope, explaining something to Ripple. Ripple may not actually be listening, creating a salve from leaves and roots she's collected.

"What was with the gift?" Massie asks, dropping to the ground on Derrick's other side.

He stops what he's doing, shrugs out of his jacket, offers it up to her.

Massie takes it, balls it up under her head. She yawns, lets her eyes flicker over him. He is wearing the _hell_ out of this stupid shirt.

"Needed some excitement around here," Derrick says.

Ripple giggles girlishly, and says, "That's not what he told me."

"Yeah?" Massie says, eyes fluttering closed. "What'd he tell you?"

"Ripple—"

"He hoped you got to kill him, the boy. He wanted to remind everyone you were more than a pretty face," the twelve year old says, "that you can win the Games just as much as your stupid partner can."

" _Ripple_!"

"Hey, I told you I can't keep secrets. Now shut up and tell me if this makes your knee feel better."

 **…**

She wakes to Derrick snarling _don't_ and Kemp hovering over her, her own boomerang pressed against her throat. There's no pressure applied to it, no real threat. It's obvious Kemp merely wants to switch up their power dynamic, upset with how she treated him an hour ago.

"Don't make me clean your things again," he orders.

"Don't kiss me again," she rebutts.

Kemp presses their noses together. "Not doing anything you don't want."

"Unless I specifically _ask_ , I don't want." She lifts her head, slams their foreheads together. "Get off me."

He doesn't. Doesn't even look like her headbutt affected him. He nuzzles her cheek, doesn't listen, and lets his mouth flutter against her jawline. "I'm so excited to kill you."

"I'm giving you until the count of three," Massie warns.

"Are you positive you don't want to know how?" It's like he hasn't heard her.

"One—"

"I'll give you the typical standoff, of course," he says, "let you show off one last time—"

"Two—"

"But I'll overpower you, as always, and I'll take my sword, and—"

"Thr—"

"She told you to get off her," Derrick interrupts coldly, and grabs Kemp by the collar, heaving him up and away, tossing him carelessly to the side. "Where I come from, we listen to girls when they say no. I didn't know it was any different in One, but I shouldn't be surprised, not when they produce dicks like you."

Kemp glares up at him, looking small and out of place for once. He recovers quickly—too quickly for Massie's liking; she enjoys watching him flounder—and stands again, meeting Derrick's gaze with a fierce look of his own.

They've never been close enough for Massie to tell, but Derrick is taller. Not by much, but enough to make Kemp feel inadequate. She sees it in his face.

"I'll kill you, too," Kemp tells him, casually, blandly, like he's discussing the weather. "It won't be as extravagant as her death will be, but it'll be… bloody. Does that sound good?"

Derrick doesn't bother with an answer.

He holds his hand out to Ripple, who is sitting, shell shocked where Massie last saw her, before she dozed off, and says, as gently as possible, "Wanna show me that fruit tree you were telling me about?"

Ripple nods, and then they are gone.

Kemp watches them go. Massie watches Kemp watch them go and there is a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

 **…**

That night, Skye trades watches with her.

 **…**

Massie fights to stay awake from three to six, the time she _should_ have been up for, but the events of the day overwhelm her and she's out like a light.

The only saving grace is Derrick, laying across from her, his feet pressed against hers. She shifts to slip one of her sneakers between his; this way, she'll feel it when—and if—he moves.

It calms her slightly.

 **…**

Massie's typically a light sleeper, but riding off the aftermath of killing Miles keeps her down longer than she would have liked. Having the foresight to stick her feet in between Derrick's is the only way she knows something is amiss.

She doesn't hear the heavy footfalls, or the whispered conversation. She barely feels the sword as it brushes along her face or the fingers in her hair. She is not aware of the begging, of the pleading.

It's the _DERRICK!_ that wakes her, the kick of the boy's foot as he rushes up. He has a good reaction time, and Massie's is particularly slow tonight—not that it matters.

As she's blinking awake, the campsite hazily coming into view, a hand clamps over her mouth, presses down

down

down

until Massie is certain she's going to choke, or her jaw is going to split in two. Her tongue is dry, and her teeth are so far back, it feels, practically in her throat, that she can't do anything but gurgle, very reminiscent to the way the boy from District Twelve died earlier, at her hand.

 _I'm sorry_ , she thinks. _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_

There's a harshly whispered threat and the hand eases up, just enough for her to breathe. For her mind to collect itself again. She blinks, and she sees the arena, sees—

" _DERRICK! DERRICK, PLEASE—_ "

Massie is dragged away, but she fights it, struggling against her captor's hold. It's Skye, she knows that much, the stupid, conniving, prissy _cunt_.

Massie tries to elbow her but realizes she can't. She must have really been asleep—rookie mistake—because she did not feel them tie her hands up. And tied they are, secured tightly behind her back. It's easy for Skye to handle her this way.

"All we had to do was take it from your stupid boyfriend's pack," Skye tells her when she notices Massie's struggle has lessened. "Boy does not know how to keep his things hidden."

 _Yes, he does_ , Massie thinks viciously. _You don't know about the trident._

"Hopefully he gets killed, too," the blonde muses, continuing to pull Massie along. A rock gets lodged in her back, right along her spine, and Massie bites on her lower lip to keep from gasping. "I'm sick of him. He's so goddamn pretentious. How do you _deal_?"

Massie is more focused on wiggling enough that she loses the rock and doesn't answer.

Skye doesn't like that.

"I asked you a question."

"I don't care," Massie spits. She lifts her lower back off the ground, tries to find something on the floor to rub against. There is nothing.

"Hm," says Skye. "I don't like you either, but Kemp says I can do whatever I want to you as long as I don't kill you. That's his job."

They stop a good distance away from the campsite. It's far enough Massie cannot hear what's happening; she must rely on the cannons, and so far none have sounded. It's a relief, but barely.

"You know," says Skye, "I don't understand Kemp's thing with you. He claims it's nothing, and, you know, when we fucked it wasn't like he was crying out for you or anything… but he doesn't bother with me here. It's just you, you, you. Why is that?"

Massie snaps, "Maybe it's because your personality is shit and he can't fuck you on live TV."

"He could, though," Skye replies thoughtfully. "It'd be good TV; I'm quite remarkable, you know—"

"I bet," Massie mutters.

"—but he doesn't want to. He's consumed by this, this, I don't know—by _you_." Skye pouts. "And you don't even _smile_!"

"What?" Massie asks, startled. Why should she smile? This isn't a fucking pageant. "I don't smi—"

She cuts herself off with her own blood curdling shriek as the tip of Skye's (extra sharp) arrow digs into the corner of her mouth.

"Stop," her assailant demands. "If you keep doing that, it won't look good!"

Massie can taste the blood on her tongue. On her teeth. She's drowning in it, and Skye keeps adding more and more as she chokes, alternating between coughing and screaming. The arrow burns as it breaks her skin.

She shrieks again, thinks she can hear her name far off, and kicks her leg out, trying to dislodge Skye.

Skye holds steady. She sits on her chest, using her knees to keep Massie's shoulders pinned to the ground. Her long blonde hair tickles Massie's neck, and the tips come up stained red in the moonlight.

Massie is dizzy with pain and she can't do anything about it.

It lasts forever, Skye cooing over how beautiful Massie looks now that she's smiling. The girl is singing, on the edges of sanity, and Massie is about to pass out when—

 _Boom._

They both look up, but the death is not broadcasted in the sky yet.

It is what Massie needs though, just that split second of distraction.

"I wonder who it is," Skye ponders. "Wouldn't it be nice if it were—"

Massie digs deep into her reservoirs of strength and shoots up, like she's laying down, trying to touch her toes. This jostles Skye enough that she slacks up a bit on the weight she's pressing into Massie's shoulders and Massie throws her left one, rolling to her right. Skye must be a lot more fragile than she originally thought—there is the telltale snap of an injured bone when her body hits the forest floor.

There's no time to think about what it is. Massie pushes herself to her knees, then to her feet, and stands over the body of the girl who cut a smile into her face.

The rock is dislodged from her back.

Blood drips down her neck, stains her lips. Everything tastes metallic. She can't help but think about what she looks like. Is she deadly? Is she crazed? She wants to rip Skye's mouth off her fucking face, shove it down her throat. Watch her choke on her own smile. Watch her _die_ trying to be pretty.

She's losing herself, it feels like, if she wasn't lost already. It doesn't help that she has no idea who died back at camp and the thought of it being him keeps her stomach in knots. The Gamemakers are probably keeping that information from her on purpose. They want a show. They want her to go crazy.

For all intents and purposes, she does. She does not remember what rational thought is, only knows pain, and anger, and gut-wrenching worry.

Skye only hurt her elbow but she's acting like she's lost a limb, moaning and groaning and whining. Massie doesn't like that. Doesn't like that she's still tied up, either, but that's neither here nor there.

She kicks Skye until she's flat on her back, just like Massie was, and Skye looks at her, a mocking fire in her eyes.

"What are you going to do, _Happy_?" Skye snarls. "You can't get to your beloved boomerang, I took it from you as you slept. Your hands are tied. You have no way to kill me. Looks like you've officially lost. And who's to say I can't just tell Kemp you struggled so much _you_ brought along your own demise—"

Massie gauges the distance, prepares herself, and drops.

She lands on Skye's windpipe, effectively silencing her. Her knee digs into her neck, the other into the forest floor. She feels the bruise there, and it smarts. Skye's hands move up to grab hold of Massie's leg, but Massie has succumbed to being dead weight. She cannot be moved.

Skye's turns red. Then her lips turn blue. Her legs kick out. She uses her long nails to scratch at Massie's calf; even if it hurts, Massie does not feel it. Feels only the life draining from Skye's body.

It's slow. Just like her murder of Miles, from Twelve.

She doesn't mind this one though. Skye is more enjoyable to her than that boy. He put up no fight. Skye, on the other hand—well, she tried. Massie will give her that much.

It was valiant, her effort. The cuts around her mouth sting like a mother and Massie is sure they will heal into some unflattering scars. No matter her mood, no matter her face, she will always look like she's smiling, and that is more terrifying than anything else she can think of. She really should be thanking Skye for this. She'll give the tributes nightmares. And not just the tributes, the Capitol, too. They deserve to fear her, to have her haunt their dreams. They turned her into this. Turned her into someone who enjoys feeling someone die beneath her, who won't make this an easy kill. She _likes_ feeling Skye suffer.

Skye convulses beneath her, one last time.

Her hands fall. Her chest rises, drops.

Massie keeps her knee in her throat until the cannon goes off, the second of the night.

Or is it morning? The sun is starting to rise above the treetops.

She still does not know who was murdered before Skye. Will she have to wait until the next night to find out?

She doesn't know how she will live, waiting twelve hours to find out. Doesn't even know who she's hoping isn't dead.

She hears a howl in the distance. A shout. Whoever it is is startled by the cannon.

Massie falls as she tries to get up, accidentally kneeing Skye in her perfect, tiny, dead nose. The bone splinters. Unfortunate. Now her face is as fucked up as Massie's.

She lifts herself up again and runs, putting as much distance between herself and the camp as possible. The other tributes are hiding out somewhere, and they are doing such a good job of it. She will do the same as she bides her time, tries to think of a plan.

First thing is first, though: she needs to cut this rope.


	3. Part Three: Hunt

**_I've reread this about five times today, and I'm still not too sure I got all the details right with the math regarding remaining tributes, so bear with me if that is all wrong and just pretend I'm right!_**

 ** _There's a lot of... there's a lot here, and I feel super murder-y and kind of gross, so, without further ado:_**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Three_

* * *

 **hunt | hənt  
** _verb  
_ 1\. pursue and kill (a wild animal) for sport or food  
synonyms: chase, pursue, stalk, course, track, trail, follow

2\. search determinedly for someone or something  
synonyms: look, seek

* * *

It takes a better part of the day, but she manages to free herself.

The body of water is full of sharp rocks, and Massie, after saying a prayer to every deity she is aware of, crosses her fingers and hopes she doesn't drown as she falls backwards.

The water is freezing. The current is workable.

Her hands get caught on a slab. She digs her feet into the sand below to keep herself upright, and bends her knees. Then, painstakingly, she starts her sawing.

She gets her arms more times than she would like, and feels the water—she wasn't aware it was salt when she first jumped in—so acutely she grits her teeth. Her face stings, her arms sting, and her upper body is starting to tire.

The sun moves. It goes from mid morning to noon so slowly Massie feels herself losing touch with reality. What day is it? Where is she? Why can't she fucking break this rope?

Every sound she hears is a cannon blast in her ears, even though it's not. Even though she's sure she hasn't heard one since she ended Skye's life.

The birds sound like cannons.

The waves lapping at the shore sound like cannons.

The rabbits bounding through the brush sound like cannons.

Cannons, cannons, cannons—and all Massie sees is _his_ face.

She grows terrified of the night.

The rope breaks as her stomach growls, demanding food. It must be nearing dinner time. Or is it lunchtime? She doesn't know. She hasn't eaten since she shared jerky with—

She hasn't eaten since the jerky from last night's dinner.

Hands now free, Massie drops to her knees in the water, tired, and inspects her wrists. They're red from the chafing, skin broken in numerous places where she'd been too aggressive in trying to slip out of the rope. Her thumb is broken; she'd stupidly did that herself, thinking her hand would be free to slide out of its restraint without that pesky digit. Instead she's got a nasty bruise blooming up the side of her hand. Luckily she chose the left and not the right, leaving her dominant in perfect condition. The salt from the water cleaned her wounds. The cuts from the rock are starting to close.

She looks at her hands again, brings them closer to her face, then farther back. They don't seem like hers. The skin on her knuckles is broken from being dragged across the forest floor. There are numerous nicks and scratches from mishaps (deliberate and unintentional) with her knives, still, thankfully, hidden deep in her pockets.

It's what she deserves, she guesses. She murdered Miles after he was tied up, and she almost died in the same manner.

No. Not almost died. She wasn't allowed to be murdered, if she recalls correctly. Kemp had told Skye to do everything but. She was to be saved. _The only person that gets to hurt you is me._ What a liar.

Massie scoffs, looks up to the sky. Cameras have been circling around her all day; she's been the most interesting thing to capture, and so she tries to find one now.

It doesn't matter that she can't. She says it anyway.

"He's not going to kill me. _I'm_ going to kill _him._ "

It's not said in a teasing way to get Kemp riled up during training. He can't even hear her.

What it is is a promise.

She will make him pay for her face. For the death he was a part of last night. Because she knows. She knows without even having to think about it that he was not who the cannon was sounded for. She had just spent her whole day in a river, and it might as well have been named denial.

But she is clear headed now.

 **…**

She finds a cave by the river, hidden by a cropping of rocks and tall cattails. There are other foliage here, bushes of berries she doesn't know the names of and flower beds of purple, pink, and yellow.

Massie takes to it, rids herself of her layers to dry, and eats a fish she plucked out of the water raw. She has no means to make a fire and she doesn't want to draw attention to herself. She picks at the flowers, ripping petals from their stem, playing that game schoolgirls play when they have a crush. Except in her case, it is more deadly than a bit of unrequited love or embarrassment.

 _Kill_

 _Be killed_

 _Kill_

 _Be killed_

 _Kill_

She grows tired of it. Rips every petal off, decides they all mean the same thing:

 _Kill_

 _Kill_

 _Kill_

 _Kill_

 _Kill_

When the sun retires and the moon takes its place, Massie's clothes are still not dry and there is a considerable drop in temperature. She cares little about this, barely feels it, and crawls to the mouth of her cave to look at the stars.

It's a beautiful recreation but she doesn't need it. What she does need comes next, only a few minutes after the arrival of night.

The anthem plays. It feels longer than usual.

Then—

Then the faces appear.

It's like they are mocking her, playing with her head. They do not show them in the order of district but rather in the order they are killed, and there is significant delays between each one.

Massie digs her fingers into the dirt.

That kid from Nine shows up first. It's been so long since Derrick killed him she's forgotten all about him. So have the Gamemakers, if they are showing him now; he died, what, two nights ago?

After him is Miles from Twelve. His face stays up there for what feels like forever, only to be replaced by Landon.

Massie jolts slightly, confused. She never expected _Two_ to die so early on, but then again…

(Landon was a little shit, much more presumptuous than Skye insinuated Derrick was, so his death is not much of a shock.)

Was the cannon for him, then? Was he the reason she freaked? Should she go back? Should she find her allies, tell them she was afraid, and that was the only reason she fled, and _would they look at what that freak did to her mouth?_

The face changes, and Massie decides no. No, she should not do that. She was smart to run.

Landon's smarmy smirk is now Ripple's sweet smile. She sees it, doesn't believe it, feels her whole body freeze. She must've missed this. _How did she miss this_?

Ripple is dead.

Ripple, who was twelve.

Ripple, who killed no one, but packed all their bags up with essential survival items, even though most of her alliance hated her guts.

Ripple, who snuck the poultice she had been perfecting only hours before into one of Massie's pockets. That very poultice is the only reason Massie's face doesn't hurt any longer.

Ripple, who should have never been here in the first place.

Massie doesn't need to see Skye's face replace hers and retreats back to her hideout.

Tomorrow she will leave. Tomorrow she will cut down everyone in her path. Tomorrow she may find Derrick again, and she will tell him how sorry she is, and she will ask him if he can ever forgive her for leaving. Tomorrow she will tell him she will never leave again.

(Because she is afraid. Because she does not think she can remain herself without an anchor. She's already slipping so much, and he just may be able to find her again.)

But tonight is a different story. Tonight she pulls her still damp clothes back on. Tonight she rubs more poultice into her cheeks, onto her arms. Tonight she covers herself with her jacket, curls up into a ball, and cries herself to sleep.

(It's the first time she's done this since she was seven, and these are not tears. They are sobs that wrack her entire body. They are loud, and if someone was hunting her they would find her immediately, and she does not care.)

 **…**

Massie wakes up before the sun rises.

She has plans to scarf down another fish, maybe two, and head back towards the Cornucopia. She needs to find her boomerang. If Skye took it, maybe it is somewhere near their campsite. If not, she can find another weapon to claim.

At the riverbank is a gift.

She touches it carefully, unzips the pouch. Inside is a new outfit, a bodysuit, slightly thicker and more absorbent than the material she has on. More importantly it is not cold or wet.

When she puts it on, it immediately regulates her body temperature. It is easy to move in, and quite durable. She finds this out after she tries to slice at it with her knife. This is not a cheap present.

There is nothing from who sent it, not like Derrick's trident gift, but she has a feeling she knows already, and if he did not send it, she knows he helped.

The note she is given is written by Cam, and she is glad for it. Fawn reminds her too much of Skye now.

 _This should be of great use to you. It does more than you think. Do not take it off._

And farther down the page, in his tiniest scrawl: _I'm sorry._

Massie closes her eyes, nods, and submerges the paper in the river until the words are bleeding together and nothing makes sense.

She eats her fish, reties her hair, and takes the pouch with her.

 **…**

She makes a list of remaining tributes as she walks.

Kemp and herself.

Derrick.

Both from Five and Six.

The girl from Seven.

One from Ten? Both from Ten? Why can't she remember this? Who even _are_ the tributes from Ten?

Both from Eleven.

She doesn't want to think about it, but Kemp is right: that is too many. The bloodbath at the Cornucopia was lackluster; Massie hardly participated, just watched them all, basically, and she can't even say she learned much.

She will have to make up for it today. Tomorrow. The next day.

 **…**

What day is it?

 **…**

It's day ten.

Is that too long or too short?

Both lengths of time feel the same.

 **…**

Massie stumbles, quite literally, upon the girl from Seven. She's a tiny thing, tinier than Ripple, who, coming from a Career district, at least had some muscle, even if she was only twelve and hardly ready to be Reaped.

She stops thinking about her before her mind can wander off, like it did as she walked. No one likes when a twelve year old is thrown into the Games. No one likes watching them die. And they all had to do it. They had to watch Dune's sister perish because Four's volunteer flaked. Massie hopes they kill her for it. She hopes Dune is the one that gets to end her life.

But enough about that. Back to the present.

"Please don't," the girl begs. She holds her hands up in surrender. "Please! I can help you."

Massie presses a hand to her hip. "You can help?" She casts a judgmental look around the dead fire and the meager supplies. The only thing worthwhile is the machete, but Massie has never been a fan. Too heavy. "How?"

Seven opens her mouth to answer, but it's clear in her eyes she doesn't have anything.

Massie doesn't care, decides she may have use after all, and asks a question. "Have you seen Derrick?"

"Derrick? Who's—"

"The boy from Four, really big, blonde, looks like he's constantly on a boat?"

"Oh, him." Seven nods. "His partner was that little girl who died last night, right? What a shame. Do you think he did—"

"No, I do not," Massie bites back. This one is so _chatty._ "Answer the question."

"Oh," the girl says again. "No, I haven't. I can help you look for him though. Is he part of your alliance?"

There's a huge possibility she doesn't have one of those anymore, but Massie says, "Something like that," and stabs Seven in the carotid.

She really has a thing for necks, it seems.

 **…**

Boom, goes the cannon.

 **…**

Getting back to the Cornucopia is surprisingly easy. She couldn't find her boomerang, but settled for taking Seven's machete, which she holds in a tight grip as she clears the tree line and enters the vast clearing the original bloodbath began in.

It shouldn't be this easy, but she doesn't care. Supplies and weapons gleam from all angles. She thinks she sees some sort of first aid kit—maybe she can really fix her face—and there's an entire supply of that dried jerky she can't stand but will devour as soon as she gets close enough.

And right there, leaning against the closed off side of the giant horn is a dual-ended spear, like the one she practiced with in training. The one that cut her behind her ear.

She will trade this bulk of silver for that one. It's lighter. Easier to handle, to throw. It's like a knife, or her boomerang, just longer and with no mechanics to come back to her. It will do.

Despite her nonchalance, Massie speeds up her leisurely stroll and jogs, not liking the lack of cover. It's why the Cornucopia is so precious. Whoever takes it has a full view of every area of the arena, can see who is coming or going before they are noticed. She doesn't think anyone is here but she'd rather be safe than sorry. She slips behind a tower of crates and sits, breathing deeply.

"Okay," she whispers to herself. "Now you need a new plan." She hadn't thought of what to do once she made it here.

She focuses on eating, since she's starved and those fish are making her nauseous. She rips apart pieces of jerky, and gulps down canteens of water mixed with purification tablets. They give her a boost, cleaning her body of anything unmentionable—death by natural causes is so _boring_ to the Capitol.

Once she's had her fill, Massie packs up the pouch her gifted suit came in. She throws in water, and any food she can reach, tosses in that first aid kit, dumps a thing of rope and a handful of tiny, jeweled knives, like the ones she was fond of back home.

Then she sits again, wonders what to do.

Her body decides it needs to sleep.

 **…**

It is not her best idea, and the Capitol is only entertained so much by her swift kill earlier. The Gamemakers suggest a few twists and muttations, but another tribute is making their way to the Cornucopia and they are not sure how this meeting will go.

So they wait.

 **…**

Massie is in the in between of sleep and waking, where everything is hazy and it is hard to determine what is real and what is dream. She knows the hard, cold ground is real. She knows the tender look in Kemp's eyes is dream.

She knows the whoosh of a weapon breaking ground next to her is real.

Eyes still closed, Massie swipes with her right hand, a tiny knife hidden between her fingers. Her assailant jumps back, just enough for her to miss, and snaps, "So, you became stupid overnight?"

She hopes the relief that settles throughout her is not noticeable on camera. She blinks her eyes open, shielding them from the light, and looks at Derrick, illuminated by sunshine. He looks like an angel—a deadly, angry angel, but an angel nonetheless.

"Hello," she greets. "Fancy meeting you here."

He shoots her an exasperated glare, twisting the end of his trident further into the ground. "What the fuck happened to your face? Where have you been?"

"Skye," Massie mutters sourly. So her mouth is still a hot mess, even with generous amounts of Ripple's salve she's been putting on it. She sighs. "I ran, after—after I killed her. I didn't know who was killed that night or who was part of the attack, so I just—I ran. I'm—" She licks her lips, cracked and tasting of nature, and swallows, avoiding eye contact. "I'm sorry about Ripple."

"It's," he starts, but stops, and drops to the ground next to her. He smells like the ocean. Is she hallucinating? "I took out Landon. He's the one who killed her. I'm sure they enjoyed watching that."

"Landon?" Massie repeats. "I thought it was—the way he looked at you after the… the—" She doesn't know what to call it, the stunt Kemp pulled after washing her boomerang, which, she remembers angrily, is missing. "Kemp didn't—?"

Derrick runs a hand through his hair, down his face. "It was his plan, alright, but he didn't want to do the dirty work, and Landon is— _was—_ always more than happy to oblige." He sounds remarkably smug talking about Landon in the past tense; Massie thinks she would, too, if she'd been the one to kill him.

They fall into a silence that is not uncomfortable, but mostly unwanted. Massie has so much to talk to him about, it feels like, but no way to start. When she looks at him, the devastation is clear on his face, though he tries to hide it. Ripple wasn't even his sister, wasn't his responsibility, not really, yet he's acting like she was, and Massie's heart twists, and her thoughts jumble again, like they did when she saw him throw the trident, and explain the girl, and—

She wants to comfort him but doesn't know how. She is not good at that. She's good at throwing boomerangs and making very precise shots with knives. She is good at flirting with boys and wearing outfits that make people blush. She used to be good at hiding her feelings but she thinks everything she's ever thought is now written on her face.

"I'm sorry," she says again. She's never apologized this much in her life. "It's my fault they killed her." It doesn't sound right, but it's all she has.

Derrick shakes his head. "They were going to do it anyway. They never thought she was a benefit to the alliance. I just… I wanted her to live." He stomps his foot childishly, like a toddler having a tantrum, and snarls, "If I make it out of this, I'm going to strangle Missy. I want to see the life drain out of her eyes."

"She was—"

"The one who was supposed to volunteer," Derrick says. "And she's a pathetic, sniveling coward who deserves worse than this."

"In One and Two, volunteers who back out are put to death," Massie supplies helpfully, providing as much information as possible. She hopes they've moved the cameras to somewhere else, to Kemp, perhaps, because people aren't supposed to know about the Career districts, even though it's basically common knowledge. "Maybe she's already dead."

"No. They'll make her watch the whole thing." Derrick chews the inside of his cheek. "Unless things have changed. Ripple _was_ Dune's sister, and he is our most famous Victor, so maybe…"

He shakes his head. "Enough about that though," and Massie can hear in his voice how absolutely enthralled he is with the possibility of this Missy girl's death; his voice has dropped an octave, gained a huskier rumble, like it had when they met, "what happened with Skye?"

She lets the sound of his voice settle between them before she tells him. She doesn't leave out a single detail, from how terrified and helpless she felt, how she was _so sure_ she was going to die at her hand regardless of Kemp's instructions, to the gift and the gross fish she ate.

Derrick twists so he's looking at her, leaning his head against his fist, propped up by his elbow. He reaches his free hand out and traces the scars around her mouth. They don't hurt anymore, but his touch has her flinching. Shivering.

"Sorry," he murmurs, but he doesn't stop. He brushes his thumb along her bottom lip, uses his other fingers to hold her jaw. "They can heal these in the Capitol. You'll be good as new in no time."

His surety of her win is so obvious Massie has to close her eyes to avoid the look in his. She's never seen someone believe in her so much. It's—unsettling.

And she doesn't want to think about what his words mean for him.

Something about him being so at peace with his own death churns her stomach. The thought of being without him here, of potentially being the one to kill him, it makes that feeling worse, like she has motion sickness, like she's falling, falling, falling.

"Kemp knows about the trident, then?" she asks, if just to change the subject.

Derrick nods. Doesn't elaborate. Doesn't say anything, not for a while.

This second silence unnerves her; he is never so quiet, even when he's not talking, so she blurts, "Do you want to sleep? I can watch."

"You want to watch me sleep?" He grins at her, tiny. More… she thinks the right word for it is sincere.

"I—um, uh—n-no? You know that's not what I meant?" Massie replies, flustered. She's warm all over, and she hates it. What's happening? Why is she acting like this? It's… that's not what she was trying to _say_. "I meant, like, watching? The, uh, perimeter? We're really out in the open?"

Why? Does everything? Sound like? A question? When it leaves? Her mouth?

Derrick laughs, soft and sweet, and Massie doesn't even feel embarrassed by the fact that she's being made fun of here. She just wants to bottle up that sound, sell it to the highest bidder. No, she changes her mind: she wants to bottle it and keep it herself, opening it when she needs to hear something nice. Something real.

"I don't want you to leave," he breathes when his laughter fades. "I just found you." His hand rises as if to touch her cheek but he drops it before he can, letting his fingers pull at the blades of grass at his knee.

"I'm only going over there?" She points to a spot, like, three feet away. There's some crates of fruits to snack on, and she can easily sit atop them, wielding her spear, making sure no one comes by. "Not that far?"

This inflection shit _needs to stop_.

"Too far," he disagrees. He furrows his brow, looking over. "Like twelve steps too far."

"You counted?" she says blankly.

"I counted," he returns. "Just stay here." He doesn't hesitate this time, wrapping his arms around her waist and lowering down to settle his head in her lap. "I think we'll be safe for an hour or so. No one is stupid enough to come back here."

"Kemp is," she says.

"He's not stupid, though. He's out hunting the other tributes probably."

"We're other tributes to him now too," she reminds him.

"We're other, stronger tributes," Derrick replies. "He wants a grand standoff with you. Me, maybe. He'll seek us out when the time is right for him."

Massie knows this about Kemp. How does Derrick?

But Derrick yawns, and Massie does not ask him. He falls asleep so easily she wonders if he stayed up since Ripple's death, and she watches the rise and fall of his chest, afraid to move even an inch in case she wakes him. Her arms are stiff at her sides; she doesn't know what to do with them, where to put them.

So she sits, and she is uncomfortable, and she can't see anything past the left side of the Cornucopia.

 **…**

There is a whistle above her head maybe forty-five minutes later.

She's found she is able to rest back on her elbows, and she's doing that, watching clouds float by and birds chirp at each other. For the first time since she's landed here she wonders if they are muttations, designed to look and act like real birds, but when things start getting boring—or rather they want to end the Games quicker—they change.

She hopes not. That'd be a shit way to go. _Pecked to death._

The whistle gets louder as another gift drops from a parachute. She must have gotten a pretty number of sponsors if she's getting another one of these so soon after the first, even after all that drama with Kemp and the others.

(She scored a twelve in training. Of _course_ she has a lot of sponsors.)

She catches it, the tiny box, so she doesn't have to move the boy in her lap. She grabs the note, once again in Cam's handwriting, and reads—

 _For the cut on the back of his leg he hasn't told you about. Keep playing this angle, the Capitol loves it.  
_ _—C & S_

Massie blinks at the words. (What angle?) The _S_ is unfamiliar to her. (Cut on his leg?) Looks at the box. (Angle?) Blinks at the words. (Cut?) Looks at Derrick's leg. (Angle?)

His pants are dark, but she just assumed that was from sweat, or dirt, or—she doesn't know, really. (Cut?) But upon closer inspection, and she doesn't care if she wakes him now, she sees that there's a long tear in them, right under the back of his knee. She can even _smell_ the blood, fresh and tangy, and she berates herself for ignoring her senses. (Angle?) She can't tell how deep it is, not with the fabric of his pants in the way, and that makes her tongue heavy and dry. (Cut?)

She sighs shakily, rolls her eyes up at the sky, and presses her fingers into his wound. She does not care how much it will hurt him. She only cares how much this hurts _her_ , which… why? Why does she care so much about this? About him? (Angle?)

Derrick grabs her wrist so tightly she's sure he's going to break it. He bats it aside, meets her gaze. He blinks away the pain, his eyes looking almost as murderous as she imagines hers do.

"Were you not going to tell me?" she demands.

"It slipped my mind," he says, voice heavy with sleep.

"Slipped your mind. It"—she releases a frazzled, incredulous breath, heat rising—" _it slipped your mind_. What the _fuck_ , Four."

He snorts derisively. "That's what you're calling me now? _Four_? Should I call you _One_? Is that what's happening here?"

"It slipped your mind!" she shrieks, slapping at every part of him she can reach. "You could have died and you didn't bother telling me. You could have died and it _slipped your mind_!"

He lets her attack him, takes every whack she administers, says nothing of it. Doesn't try to stop her. "I was thinking about other things." The anger in his eyes softens into something else. "More important things."

Massie's entire body is shaking. She whips her head back and forth so quickly she makes herself dizzy and throws the cannister of medication at his face. He catches it before it can do any damage, places it next to him, doesn't use it.

"Massie—"

"No," she says fiercely, hitting at him again when he tries to touch her. He recoils this time. "Put that on and don't talk to me. I'm going over there."

" _Where_ is _there_?" he demands.

"Wherever you aren't!" she yells at him. Her hands are quivering as she grabs her spear; she drags it behind her. The sharp end digs into the ground, dislodging dirt and grass as she moves. She hits a box and instead of moving out of the way, she takes her blade and stabs it. Grain spills out. Why the hell would anyone need _grain_? Are they going to fucking _plant_ here?

She stops on the other side of the Cornucopia, and shoves the spear into the ground with a malice she's unaware she possesses. She now has a different view of the arena, and she glares at the part of the forest she hasn't explored.

She glares

and glares

and glares

until her vision is blurry, and her head aches, and it's hard to breathe. She thinks it may even be raining, there's water on her face, and maybe it's poisonous rain and that's why she's having a hard time breathing, and this is such a terrible and embarrassing way to die. Worse than the birds.

She sniffs, wipes her nose on her hand, and coughs. Her head feels heavy.

If this is how she goes, it's how she goes. She can't escape poison rain.

But then there's a figure—it's blurry, but it's Derrick, who else can it be?—crouching in front of her. She blinks at him, confused. Why isn't he dying from the poison rain? Why is he so… so… unbothered? He's not even _wet._

He runs the pads of his thumbs under her eyes, holds her face again like he did earlier. He smells like the hospital, so he must have put the cream on his leg. "Block," he says, "why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying," she hisses. "I'm dying." Does he _not_ feel the poison rain? Is he immune to it? Is there something in the water in Four she's missing out on?

He cracks a smile. "Dying, huh? Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"I don't understand," she admits.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, dropping it. "I wasn't going to keep it from you. I just—I forgot. I was coming here to find something to put on it, and I saw you, and I just. I forgot. I was so happy to see you."

Massie blinks again. "But you were _mean_ to me!"

Derrick moves closer, tangles his fingers in her hair. Massie sniffles. The rain is wearing off, it seems. "I was concerned," he says. "I'm not very good with emotions."

"You tried to stab me."

"No," Derrick argues, "I tried to scare you. _You_ tried to stab me."

"Because I thought you were trying to stab me," she returns haughtily, as if this is all his fault.

He opens his mouth, closes it, lets his lips quirk up instead. Like he's endeared. "Okay," he says. "I tried to stab you."

"I don't appreciate that. I ex—" She stops. What she wants to say makes no sense, so she doesn't say it. She can't expect better from him. She should expect exactly that. He'll try to kill her soon. It's the reason they're here.

The rain starts again, slower this time. A drizzle, maybe. Again it doesn't affect Derrick.

"Hey, hey, hey." He gathers her into his lap, presses her against his chest. He's warm. His heartbeat is steady, strong. "What's wrong?"

"It's raining again," she mumbles, voice small.

"It's not…" he starts. "Right. Why is it raining?"

"I don't know." She grips his waist, squeezes. "Don't you feel it?"

Derrick is silent for a moment. "No."

"Oh."

His hands are big on her back, on her hair. He'll kill her soon, she reminds herself. Maybe with those hands. She squeezes him harder. It could be nice.

"Don't you want to know what I was thinking about that made me forget to tell you about my leg?"

"No," Massie says. It's probably her death. He's probably playing the same game Kemp is. Maybe they've teamed up because it will be fun for them to tag team in their killing. After all Landon is gone, so Kemp needs a different final fight. Why not choose Derrick?

Kemp always liked dangling her death in front of her.

She doesn't know enough about Derrick to think otherwise.

"It was you," he tells her anyway, even though she doesn't want to know. "I was thinking about you, and how happy I am that you aren't dead. There was a cannon earlier, and—"

"That was the girl from Seven," Massie says. "I killed her because she didn't know where you were and she was useless to me."

Derrick pauses. "You… I thought—" He swallows. She feels it. "You were looking for me?"

"Obviously," answers Massie. "You think I'd look for someone else?"

"Massie."

"Yes."

"Look at me."

She pulls away from his chest, meets his gaze. It's not raining. It's never rained. She can tell that now, looking at the front of his shirt.

"Oh," she says.

"Why?" he asks, and he doesn't clarify what he wants to know. She hears it though.

"I don't want you to die," she admits, voice small, quiet. It doesn't matter. If the Capitol likes whatever this is, the cameras will pick up everything. Will broadcast it everywhere. Will play it in the middle of the night when the tributes are sleeping, like reruns of a popular TV show. _In case you missed it!_

He can't say anything to make her feel better. It's her, or it's him. There's nothing that can be said that can ease her (his) worries.

"Massie," he says again, grabbing her chin.

 **…**

This time they kiss.

 **…**

There's a riot in the Capitol as soon as they see it. People with lavender, periwinkle, rose-colored skin shout in the streets. Tattoos of flowers and swirls and other dangerous, edgy designs are ruined by the tears they weep as they watch the girl from District One realize what she's feeling in her heart. A few throw expensive vases and dishes throughout their homes, out windows, when they see the grief on the boy from Four's face.

And when their lips meet—

When their lips meet, there are demands. People flood the president's house with phone calls. They march to the Games headquarters. They are not having fun anymore. They are not enjoying this.

 _Let them leave together_ , they shriek.

 **…**

But that is not how this works.

 **…**

It's wet, the kiss. Massie's face is still drenched in her tears, not rain, and the corners of her mouth have the makings of two thin, raised scars, courtesy of Skye. She'd be embarrassed if she had any sense to care.

Derrick doesn't seem to notice.

He's holding her face again, like he's been doing since he met her, it feels like, and the way his lips move is slow. Tantalizing. He knows what he's doing.

Massie claws at the back of his neck, wanting more. Wanting fast. Wanting harsh. She doesn't want slow. She doesn't want whatever this is, this… this _teasing._

But it's nice, his mouth on hers. She feels something other than emptiness, other than the constant fear that's started to creep up on her. She feels warm. Safe.

And then, after Derrick's established that—it's like he's talking to her with this kiss—it changes.

He stops. She wonders why, but he doesn't pull away. Their mouths are still pressing together, and he's waiting. He's said what he wants to say. It's her turn to talk.

She's not as sweet as he was, but she says the same thing, more or less. She takes complete control, even manages to take dominance in their position. His hands fall from her face, pressing into the dirt to keep them upright. Her knees dig into the sides of his thighs, and she squeezes her own, wanting to feel the strong muscles of his legs.

Their teeth clank together, and it vibrates through her mouth, and she bites down on his bottom lip so hard she draws blood, blood that she licks at like she had when it was on his finger, and Derrick moans. He removes his palms from the ground, lets them fall backwards, grabs her cheeks so tightly she thinks he may squeeze her into a pulp.

He sucks particularly hard at her jawline. She gasps, a pathetic excuse of a sound, hardly anything there, and allows herself to fall into submission.

They do this for what feels like forever, but the cameras leave them so the Capitol can watch Kemp behead the boy from Five.

His cannon goes off, extra loud.

Massie and Derrick don't hear it.

 **…**

When they finally stop, Massie is—what's it called? _—nervous_.

A number of thoughts race through her head, each one making her more and more anxious. What if Derrick regrets it? What if he was just being nice? What if he doesn't want anything to do with her anymore? What if he just wanted that, and now he was going to kill her?

If he questions it, she'll tell him it was the adrenaline. The reminder that they are so close to the end. Her nerves are fried, her impulse control is very weak. It's not like she's embarrassed to admit he's attractive. He is. She's not blind.

Nothing happens.

Instead Derrick leans forward and kisses her forehead. It's all she can do to keep herself from crying again. Her mind wanders—if it weren't for the Games, she'd never have met him, but she wonders what kind of normal life they could have had if they weren't here right now. Maybe they could go to the movies. Or eat breakfast together. Or she could see why he knows so much about knot tying.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," she replies.

He sends her a look that tells her he doesn't believe her.

"I'm thinking about my boomerang," she says, because that's safe, and she is, sort of. "I'm thinking we shouldn't let Kemp have all the fun."

 _I'm thinking about what it might be like to be able to wake up next to you and not think about things like murder. I'm thinking that I'll never get to find out how you take your coffee and how you like your eggs._

Derrick smiles. "As long as you remember not to hurt yourself with that thing, I think you'll be fine."

"That was one time and it was an accident!"

He laughs, stands. Holds out his hand. "Come on then," he commands. "Time for you to play."

Massie grabs his hand, pulls herself up. "I want to see you use the trident again."

"You will," he promises. He tosses her the spear with a teasing little _be careful_ and tangles their fingers together. His eclipse hers so much Massie's hand is dwarfed in his.

She thinks she likes it.

"Where are we going?" she asks. He's leading her towards that part of the forest she hasn't been to yet. Surprisingly she's not worried.

"I know where Six is camping out."

"They're still together?"

"Never left each other, I think." Derrick squeezes her hand. "You'll have to be careful though. We both do. If I remember training correctly they both were pretty decent sword fighters."

"Ooh." A thrill races up Massie's spine. "A real fight, then."

"Sound less excited," Derrick teases.

"My last kill was boring!"

"You made it boring. You don't know what that girl could have done. She had a machete."

"Yeah, and it looked like it had never seen flesh before." Massie rolls her eyes. "What a waste. Think how that machete must feel."

Derrick coughs around a snort. "It's an inanimate object, babe, it has no feelings."

"You don't know that," Massie shoots back. "Maybe they want to tear into skin as much as we do. Maybe they want to feel blood on them, maybe—"

"By any chance did you hit your head recently?"

"I think when Skye attacked me," she offers. "Or maybe I did hit my head in the river. It's a little fuzzy."

Derrick clicks his tongue and fondly presses his mouth to her braid. "You need to release all that pent up energy. This will be good for you."

"Is it weird that ki—"

"Don't ask it. Don't think it. Not here. It makes it worse."

"But—" She stops, remembers how she fell apart when she thought about him dying, and keeps her mouth shut. At least on that particular matter. "Which one do you want? The girl or the boy?"

"How about we see what we're working with before we start making grand plans, yeah?"

Massie blinks. "It's like you don't even know me."

"I don't, actually," answers Derrick. "Not the mundane, small things, at least."

"Do you want to know those things?"

He swings their joined hands between them, makes a left. Nods. He won't look at her, scanning the underbrush. Massie wonders if this is just a convenient way for him to avoid the same thoughts that are swarming her now.

They are going to talk about their likes and dislikes, their favorite things to do, as if one of them, maybe both of of them, won't end up dead when this is all said and done. As if they aren't going to find each other just to lose each other.

 **…**

Massie's favorite color is purple.

Derrick's is red.

He works with his dad on a boat, and hasn't eaten fish since he was six because he can't stand the smell anymore.

She hasn't gone a day without eating an avocado. You know, except while she's been here.

Most of his friends are people he's gone to District Four's training school with. If he comes back, they'll most likely hate his guts because he's won and they're jealous.

She doesn't have any friends. Just Kemp.

Before training was her life, Massie had taken gymnastics classes.

Derrick used to like baking pies with his mother.

She has no siblings.

He has a sister and a brother, both older. He's the only one who was ever interested in participating in the Hunger Games.

She thinks she might like gardening.

He thinks ( _knows_ ) he likes her.

 **…**

"There," he whispers.

"Where?" Massie breathes, crouched.

"Are you blind?" Derrick snaps. " _There._ "

His emphasis does nothing to open her eyes, and she's about to hit him with a snarling insult when—

"Oh," she says.

"Yeah. _Oh_."

"I didn't realize they'd be so good at hiding."

Derrick's voice is a breath against her ear. He's moved so he's behind her, chest pressing against her back. She's not sure why. "They spent a lot of time at the survival stations, too."

Survival and sword fighting—a deadly combo, even for Careers.

"Why are you hovering over me?" she asks. She keeps her eyes on the (practically hidden) camp, only sees the tributes because she's now trained her eyes to look. There's movement, small and short, and it looks like maybe the boy is injured. Not bad, but enough. If they're spending all their time hunkered down here, they've probably succumbed to a fair few of the Capitol's muttations.

"You wanted to play, didn't you?" he murmurs. "I'm just making it fun."

"By—?"

Derrick leans forward, arm crossing in front of her chest to slip into her pocket. He emerges with a knife, nothing special, just a slim, sharp number, and whispers, "Watch."

He throws.

The blade catches the sunlight, reflective, blinding. The way he's thrown it, it somersaults through the air, a pretty move but not as precise as she would like. Massie watches it, perplexed, and it sticks to the ground, right where the girl is resting.

She lets out a startled shriek, shoots up. She's covered in dirt, in some artsy way, and Massie remembers she's good with paints. Or something.

The boy looks over at her, frowning.

"Someone's _here_ ," she hisses.

"Impossible," he denies. "There hasn't been anyone since—"

"Since that idiot from Four stomped through here!" she yells.

"You're only attracting more attention by shouting," the boy snaps. "He didn't even notice us when he came by. He was too angry to care."

Derrick chuckles. The sound slips down Massie's spine. "A game," he proposes.

She tilts her head, listening.

"I give you a target, you hit it. We do this until you run out of knives." He runs his fingers over her shoulder, slowly, dipping beneath the material of her suit to ghost across her bare skin. "I can make it worth your while, if you make the shots."

Massie fights to keep her body calm as he caresses her, the light touch making goosebumps appear where his hand had once been. His mouth is so close to her neck she can feel his lips form the words against the skin there.

"And if I miss?"

( _I won't_ )

Derrick's tongue darts out, licks. "I'll still make it worth your while."

Massie giggles, light and girly, something she's done, maybe, never, and purrs, "You get to participate, too."

 **…**

 _Tree trunk by the girl. Extra points if she can graze her head_ : a rough open-mouthed kiss right behind her ear. He whispers something particularly naughty; her cheeks flush, and she knows the cameras caught her reaction, if not the words.

 _Right in between his feet_ : she follows his teasing lead, presses her mouth to his defined jawline, runs her tongue up, presses her nose to his cheek.

 _Snap the ropes that are keeping their tarp up_ : he heaves her into his lap, fingers splayed against her abdomen. They're so _so_ **so** long. His hands are so _so_ **so** big. She feels she can get lost in them.

 _The boy's foot, nowhere too painful, especially where he won't be able to feel it_ : (Male Six doesn't even fucking _notice_ ) and Massie turns her head, overcome by the amusement, and kisses Derrick straight on the mouth, laughing.

 _Make it painful; the girl's upper body, where her shoulder and her neck meet_ : Derrick swallows her laughter, because she's still laughing, because she's going crazy, because she's losing it, losing herself in someone one else's pain, in the warmth of Derrick's mouth, Derrick's hands. She kisses him head on as soon as the knife leaves her hand; she knows she's hit her target even before it gets there, and when the girl howls, she deepens the kiss, coaxes his lips open with her tongue.

 **…**

There are more knives left, but they get distracted.

 **…**

When Massie and Derrick finally pull away, lips swollen, cheeks pink, and bloodlust (slightly) quelled, he whispers, "Keep throwing or get closer?"

Massie runs her fingers through his matted curls before she remembers herself. She is _not_ that girl. "What would be more fun?" she asks.

"There hasn't been a particularly close fight since the bloodbath," Derrick muses. "Except for you, it seems."

"Aw." Massie pouts. "Do you want some glory?"

Derrick doesn't answer, just leaps to his feet, grabs his trident, and charges through the underbrush. Massie sighs.

 **…**

It's messy. It's brutal. It's glorious.

For the first time in days, Massie's blood sings. Her arms hurt. She retreats because she doesn't want to get hit, not to make things interesting. There's actually a chance she may _die_. They're evenly matched against Six, even with the wounds they inflicted in their little game.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Derrick twirl his trident and parry a blow from a sword. He backs up, keeps the kid at arm's length, and watches his movements. He is tracking him, because these guys aren't as good as they are, and he will find a weakness in him soon. What he does with that is up to him.

Massie jerks her head back to avoid a slice to her nose, and whacks Six away with the shaft of her spear. It sends her sprawling and Massie snorts. For all her time at the sword fighting station, she didn't learn how to _stand_. Maybe she'd misinterpreted this situation.

The girl screams suddenly, looking to her right, and Massie watches Derrick stab the kid, apparently as over this as she is. There is a shuddering gasp, and Derrick stops there, not shoving the trident all the way through. He draws the death out, bored with the fight.

Massie watches this with just as much interest but less horror as the other tribute. The trident has ripped the boy's shirt, and there is gunk all over, and even some skin flapping around because Derrick _rotated_ the prongs, really tore the chest up. Massie allows girl Six these moments of surveillance to grieve before she takes her spear, and with that same neck obsession she's noticed she had, slowly

s

l

o

w

l

y

forces it through her windpipe. The girl gasps, gargles; red, red, red blood spills down her throat, over the spear, spreads down her chin—

Massie watches her die, amazed, enthralled, captivated.

All that blood,

all that struggle,

all that persistent desire to live,

it drains out of her, because she stared at a boy for too long.

Massie blinks, brings a finger to her mouth, tastes the girl's life on her tongue. It tastes like victory.

(She just looks crazy. Insane. Like any other Career looks once they've made it this far.)

(But no other Career has ever had a Derrick, and she leaves her spear to topple with the dead body. Meets him halfway. His trident is sticking straight up; his kill is still bleeding out, still dying, because a three-prong stab wound is slow when it wants to be.)

(She kisses him.)

(He grabs hold of her, keeps her tight enough against him that she cannot think, in any way, they are both not real. She is so aware of their ability to live.)

(They lose themselves in each other—their minds, their surroundings, the things they've done to make it this far.)

(She would like to always lose herself in him.)

 **…**

Two cannons blast.

 **…**

The tributes left:

One: Massie, Kemp.

From Four: Derrick.

From Five: Carrie.

Ten: Aimee.

From Eleven: Andy, Allie Rose.

 **…**

Another cannon sounds shortly after. Not one of theirs.

Kemp increases his body count, his sword dripping with Aimee's blood.

 **...**

They return to the Cornucopia, exhilarated, sated, and bloody, and dig into crates of dried fruits, meats, and sneakily hidden loaves of bread.

There are no words between them. Her leg settles in his lap, his hand wraps her ankle.

A parachute floats down to them, settles near Derrick's knee. He pauses, licks the salt from his lips.

The gift is superficial but so very wanted—it's a cake. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting. Derrick's mentor scrawls, _for the entertainment your latest kills provided, xoxox S._

"XOXOX," Massie giggles. "Who's your mentor?"

Derrick rolls his eyes affectionately, because he likes his mentor, and says, "Sage. She won three years ago. She was—"

"I know," says Massie.

Sage manipulated nature during her Games, used branches, and thorn bushes, craters, and the arena itself to win. She used manmade weapons maybe twice. It's the most creative the Games have ever been; Sage is normally front and center for environmentally friendly rallies and protests now, because the planet is special. The planet helps you if you help it.

He breaks off a piece of cake, feeds her. She licks her lips, his fingers.

"You know what this means," he says, mouth close to hers. She tastes the sugar there. "It's almost over."

Massie looks at him, frosting on her upper lip, and echoes what he told her days ago, the same thing that scared her, that made her wish the cameras couldn't pick it up. She doesn't care now. "I can't kill you."

He smiles, tiny and soft, and leans forward, licks at her mouth. It's not a kiss. "I can't kill you," he says, and it's a challenge, it sounds like. She doesn't like it. "If it comes down to it—kill me. I want you to win."

"No," she says. She can't imagine it.

Never could, if she allows herself the thought. She doesn't. But it's there, settling uncomfortably in her tummy with the sickly-sweet cake.

"It won't come down to it, then," he says with such stunning finality Massie feels the food come right back up. She swallows roughly, forcing it back down. They shouldn't have eaten this.

Massie grabs his face, makes him look at her. " _No_."

"I—" He stops, changes course. "You can't tell me what to do."

She looks at him, _really_ looks at him, at his dimples, at his freckles, at his lashes. She looks at everything else: at the crinkles around his eyes, at the evidence he used to smile often, and loudly. She looks at everything she knows about him, tries to figure out what she doesn't, and she says, "Please don't. I will _die_ if you do."

"Massie," he says.

"Massie," he says, and the world explodes.

 **…**

" _Derrick_!" she yells.

 **…**

Kemp cackles, loud and long and terrifying.

 **…**

Carrie loads her slingshot, heaves it over her shoulder, falls when another earthquake ravages the arena.

 **…**

Allie-Rose covers her face with her arms, dropping to the ground.

 **...**

Andy curses, loads as many poison darts into his gun as possible, shoves the rest of them into his pocket.

 **…**

Derrick tightens his hold on his trident, tries to find Massie, shouts when he can't.

 **…**

There are six of them left.

 **…**

Six.

 **…**

The final fight looms.

Only one will be victorious.

 **…**

Back at the Capitol, Cam and Sage grip hands. They don't know who will win, but they know that their tributes cannot both make it out alive. But still.

But _still_ —

They hope.

 **…**

Another sponsorship comes their way.

 **…**

Massie holds a tree branch tightly with her thighs. The pain is excruciating. Her body aches, but she refuses to let go. She will not. Will not. _Will not_. She looks for him, but stops, because she needs to focus on herself. It's hard to do that after all this time—she's spent half (read: all) of her days in the arena looking over him. Not being able to find him makes her heart hurt. Makes her hands shake. Makes her nervous.

He grounds her.

No cannon has sounded, but…

but.

But what is she supposed to do when he's no longer there?

 **…**

She will not cry.

She will not cry.

She will not cry.

 **…**

She cries, and it's stupid, and she hates it, and she wants to scream, but she won't.

There is a smaller, tinier earthquake. Massie hugs the branch, presses her face into the harsh skin of the tree. There is a stinging above her left eyebrow, which means she scratched it, probably, and she sniffles.

The tremor is not even over when— _BOOM!_

Massie shrieks. The sound is too loud, too invasive, too definite. She lets go of the branch and slams her hands over her ears.

There is no real way for her to know what happened, what's happening, what will happen, so she must create a scenario that gets her out of this arena in one piece. She retreats into a world where she is not clinging to a tree, but is making breakfast with Derrick in a nice little house by the sea, the windows open to let in the breeze and the sun. He likes his eggs over easy and he can tell when you put more than half a teaspoon of sugar in his coffee and he does not like that.

 **...**

"You've been here too long," Derrick says. His hair reflects the rays of the sun. They are on the beach now, and he is barefoot, holding her hand. "You can't stay here."

Massie swallows, meeting his gaze. "Why not? Do you not want me here?"

"Of course I do, but if you're here, you're not there, and you're not safe."

"But I don't know if you're there," she answers, voice small, "and I know you're here, so I would rather stay."

Derrick puts his hands on her shoulders, steps in front of her, blocks the sun. "If you are here, you can't hear the cannons, and if you can't hear the cannons, you will never know."

"Never knowing may be better," Massie admits.

He is silent, looking at her, and she can't see him, not anymore. Without the sun on his face, he is just darkness. She feels the kiss he presses to her forehead, though, as he whispers, "You're going to hate yourself if you stay here. Go. _Win_."

"But if I win, you don't," she whispers. "If I win, I'm alone."

He squeezes her hand, and she is crying in her fantasy world as an earthquake shakes through the beach, taking it, along with Derrick, away from her.

 **...**

When Massie returns, the same earthquake in her mind is terrorizing the arena. She is shaking along with the tree, but her trembling is all her own. Her mind reaches out feelers for the beach, for the house alongside it, but there is nothing there. It is gone. She bites back a sob, angry with herself all over again.

She forces herself into a seated position and has to wipe at her eyes multiple times to see clearly. She has no idea how much time has passed, but her eyes hurt and her face is swollen. Her fingers are wet with tears and blood and a little bit of bark, but once she is free of that, she notices the parachute on the branch above her.

She lets go of her spear—how is she still holding it? It falls below; luckily it makes no noise when it hits the ground. Even if it did, Massie would not have paid attention. She shimmies up the tree, hooks her leg over, and heaves.

She's tired, she's shaken, but she's there, right near the parachute.

She unwraps it. The note is inside, but she ignores it, sparing a moment to grin. It splits her face, her misery, and it is uncomfortable, but just for a moment.

What it is: a boomerang, sharper than her original one. Sleeker. There is no question it will kill any opponent. Under it, wrapped in a cloth, is a knife she's never worked with before—one that is short, but somehow long, sharp enough, gleaming enough.

Massie holds it in her hand, observes it. She's received two weapons and wonders if anyone else has gotten a gift, wonders if double sponsorships like this is normal. The final fight is about to occur—it's obvious—and the Capitol is preparing them all for their utmost entertainment.

She leans her back against the bark of the trunk.

Waits.

 **…**

Another tremor takes over the arena.

 **…**

Massie closes her eyes, sends a prayer (to every deity she knows and doesn't), and drops.

Once again, she really has no plan, just Derrick's words (her words?) flitting through her brain: _You're going to hate yourself if you stay here. Go. Win._

 **…**

She meets Carrie first.

Well, not Carrie—

She meets a rock first, right to her kneecap, then she meets Carrie.

She, Massie, is on one knee, her other on _fire_ , and she tries to scramble up, but it's hard to straighten her leg. She grabs for her knife, the new one, and holds it as tightly as possible.

Carrie looms over her, and she probably was pretty once, but her front tooth is chipped, and there's lines of claw marks down her face. Her eyebrow is bisected, and her lips look painful, chapped and raw and bloody.

"Massie Block," Carrie greets. It sounds like she hasn't talked in some time. "It's lovely to see you again."

Massie is startled by the girl's emotionless tone, by the complete lack of humanity. Not like Massie has much of her own left, but _still_. She tries to wrack her brain for any sense of who this girl is, who she presented herself as.

There's no recollection, nothing nothing nothing, and then—

 _"Do you have anyone waiting for you at home?"_

 _"Romantically, no," Carrie says. "Just my younger brothers."_

 _"And your parents?"_

 _"Not in the picture."_

Family oriented. Carrie is family oriented, and she needs to win to get back to her brothers. She doesn't care what she has to do. She needs to take care of them.

Massie has no drive like that, no one to go back to, just famous parents and an already lavish lifestyle. She's lived in a Victor's house all her life, spent her childhood racing through parties, perfected her etiquette at her grandmother's table. She's the typical prissy District One girl, the one they think will break people with mean words and cutting glances. She's not likeable; most girls from One are not, because that's the way they're brought up.

But she can't let Carrie win. Not when she's looking for something in here. Not when she has someone to—no no no don't finish that thought, go with, with—not even if she feels sympathetic towards her—but she doesn't feel anything actually, doesn't care in the slightest—and she smirks up at her. Remembers her scars.

(What she can't see: the way her face looks. How grotesque. How skin crawling.)

(The Capitolites wonder aloud if she will mold into this version of herself if she wins. If she'll embrace her terror, her crazy, the same way Dylan Marvil has with her fingers.)

"Carrie, honey," she coos, moments too late. "Been well?"

"Better than you," says Carrie. "Your face is fucked."

 _Go. Win._

Massie laughs, harsh and loud, haha _HAHAHA_ , and returns, "Yours isn't any better."

"Yeah," Carrie agrees. "But that mutt is in pieces, not me, so I'll take what I got, thanks."

Massie doesn't ask. Doesn't care. She tries to lengthen her leg, finds that it doesn't ache as much as it did before. She doesn't try to move, though, decides to wait it out.

Carrie is at that point in the Games where she can't stop talking, probably because she hasn't had many opportunities to do so. She babbles about her plan for her, but Massie isn't listening. She's noticed the button hidden on the bottom of her knife. She rubs her thumb over it, wonders what it does.

 _Go. Win._

Above her, Carrie loads her slingshot again, having grown bored of her villainous tirade. She doesn't shoot, not yet, only practices her aim. She thinks Massie is an easy target. She wants to hit her in the head: a smart move. Massie would do similarly, if she were in her position.

She watches it all happen, oddly detached. For some reason she's not too concerned.

"Any last words?" Carrie asks.

 _Go. Win._

"Yeah," Massie says. "I wonder what this does."

" _Wh_ —"

She presses the button.

 **…**

 _Boom._

 **…**

What happens is this: The button elongates the knife, turns it into a sword. This is as much of a surprise to Massie as it is Carrie.

But Carrie's surprise will forever be immortalized.

"Huh," Massie says aloud. She's impressed by this gadget. She wonders if she'll get to keep it if she wins. Are they allowed souvenirs? Does she get a trophy, or does she just have to wear a stupid tiara? She'll take this instead, please.

The sharp end of the thing is sticking out of the top of Carrie's head, coated in blood and brain, membrane and skull. It's disgusting.

She marvels at this for a moment, remembers Carrie's strong words despite their short conversation, the steel in her eyes. She really thought she'd win. How…

… _silly_.

With a grunt Massie pulls the sneaky knife-sword out of Carrie's body. It makes a slimy, squishy, almost squeaking noise as it slides out of the skin under her chin. Whatever is all over it splatters on Massie, and she makes to wipe her face, but manages to spread it more rather than remove it. She's in no position to care about this, though, and it's not like she's trying to impress anyone with her looks, so she continues pulling. She doesn't want to just leave this extremely thoughtful gift here with this dead girl.

She decides to leave the gunk on it. A memento.

Her leg is okay now. Not great, not her best, but she will make it where she needs to go. She will be able to use it, to fight on it. It doesn't feel like she's broken anything, maybe just fractured her kneecap, maybe lost a tiny fragment of bone. She's trained with a lame ankle before. She can put weight—as much as she wants, as much as she _needs_ —on it. Her pain tolerance is crazy.

Before she leaves, she decides to take the slingshot, too. She tucks it through a loop on her suit. This, too, is very handy: there is no sign she even got hit in the knee. In fact, there's no sign she was even in a fight. Just the blood and everything else smeared on her face, in her hair.

She remembers Cam's note. _It does more than you think_.

She wonders what else it can do. It clearly absorbed most of the force from that rock, and it is always regulating her body temperature, and it's comfortable…

Massie's whistling as she leaves, mulling this over, pressing the button on her knife to elongate and retract. She hears the hovercraft, coming to collect a girl who should have won, if only to take care of her family. A shame she had to be in the same Games as Massie.

 **…**

There's another tremor. A tree falls. Rocks tumble.

The arena is closing in on itself so the remaining tributes will meet where their stories began.

At the Cornucopia.

 **…**

You see, Massie doesn't want to go to the Cornucopia. She knows what she will find there.

She knows she'll have a better chance of reuniting with Derrick there, if that cannon earlier wasn't his, but she'd really rather sit out the bloodbath in this tree she's scaled. She snacks on some dried meat, contemplates her next move, avoids thinking too much about her future. About boys, which...

That's weird. That's really _fucking_ weird, since she's currently the star of a murder reality show, fighting for her life, _clinging_ to it, and she's over here, snacking on fake prosciutto and fantasizing about all the boys she knows.

It will be easier, she decides, blinking away images of bronze hair and dark skin, to wait until the cannons go off. That will determine who her opponent will be, and she will kill him. Hopefully it is not Derrick. Hopefully he dies by someone else's hand and she does not have to see it happen. Or do it. When she wins, she will ask the Capitol to erase her memories of him and carve in her mouth scars so they are more pronounced.

A small part of her hopes all the cannons go off except hers and the others will have ended their lives together, fighting to win, and she will be a Victor just by default. Not a glorious way to win, but a win nonetheless.

She thinks she may like that.

 **…**

The Gamemakers do not like her plan.

 **…**

Her tree shakes. Massie holds tight, refuses to give them what they want.

Her tree shakes. She is stronger than it.

Her tree shakes. Leaves fall, birds yell. Massie is silent.

Her tree shakes.

Her tree shakes.

Her tree shakes.

Her tree stops shaking.

 **…**

They try a different tactic.

 **…**

Night falls so quickly it is like watching a time lapse, and the sky races from mid-day blue to purplish dusk to the black of night, dusted with stars.

The sped up version of the anthem plays.

Massie watches the crest appear, munching again on some meat. She idly wishes she had cheese, that would make this so much better, and wonders if she could, y'know, just _ask_ the world for some. Before she can, she's spitting it all out, coughing, choking, _spluttering_.

The Gamemakers display every single death so far, lining pictures of the tributes up, as if they are for sale, and aren't they, really, when you think about it? But Massie is not thinking about that, no, she's thinking about how she does not see Derrick up there.

She waits and waits and waits, waits so long the sky starts lightening up, for the big reveal. For them to say _ha got your hopes up, didn't we_ , and put his face up there with the rest of them.

It doesn't happen. The pictures fade as the sun rises and Massie knows what she must do next.

She was never meant to ignore the Cornucopia.


	4. Part Four: Standoff

_Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Four_

* * *

 **stand** **·** **off |** **ˈ** **stand** **ˌ** **ôf  
** noun  
 _a stalemate or deadlock between two equally matched opponents in a dispute or conflict  
_ synonyms: deadlock, impasse, stalemate, level, toss-up

* * *

Dusk has fallen by the time Massie arrives at the Cornucopia, sauntering in like she's late for a party or some otherwise more interesting engagement. It takes all of her strength for her to act this way, just the words _go win_ giving her the drive to step forward after she spent an hour (two?) standing at the treeline. So, really, she got here before dusk, but it doesn't matter because she's walking towards it _now_ , not _then_ , so dusk it is.

She presses her palms to her thighs as an unwelcome voice calls, "Would you look who it is! She returns!"

At the top of the horn, Kemp lounges, squinting at her, watching her, tracking her. He looks oddly at ease up there, like he was born to be here, in this arena. He probably was. "I have to say I'm surprised to see you here."

"Alive?" she croaks.

He shifts positions, dangling his legs over the side, and smiles. "Yes," he says. "Without me I really thought you'd be dead by now."

She hates him.

(She loves him.)

"You told everyone not to touch me," she reminds him. "Of course I'm alive. It's what you wanted."

"People aren't good at listening," Kemp returns easily, like they are talking about the weather. "That's why it's surprising."

"Mm." Massie shifts her weight, swallows. She's nervous, and it's showing, and she's never had nervous tells before, so what is this? "Skye was one of them, I guess."

Kemp hops off the Cornucopia. "No, she listened," he says. "I told her she had to keep you in piece, and she did, except for…" He is in front of her now, so close, too close, with his fingers on her face, tracing the lines of her scars. It makes her nauseous. Her mind doesn't even recognize, doesn't _like_ , his touch, but her body reacts, leaning into him for a moment. "I like them, though. You look hot."

Massie breathes in deep to avoid jerking back. Show no fear. Show nothing nothing nothing. "You _told_ her she could hurt me," she whispers. Even she can hear the betrayal in her tone. "You said you were the only one allowed to hurt me."

"I am," he replies, just as soft, but worse. Meaner. "Because I am going to hurt you in all the ways that count. Skye will be nothing compared to me, and I can't wait."

"You will have to," Massie says around a mouthful of blood. She's bitten her tongue. "It is not down to the two of us just yet." She tears herself away from him, plops herself down on the grass, and surreptitiously rubs at her face to rid herself of the slime his fingers placed on her skin.

"Oh, I know," Kemp sing-songs. "They will be disposed of soon, don't you worry."

Massie nods, stares at her hands. _They_ , he said. _T h e y_.

A part of Massie's heart leaps and she hates herself for it. He is expecting more than one person. _More than one person_. She knows this to be true, looked at the images in the sky, but hearing someone other than herself confirm it... Massie was never really good at math, but if Carrie's cannon was the only cannon that sounded recently, that makes it _one_ cannon, and one cannon means there are one, Kemp, two, Massie, three, Andy from Eleven, and four, Derrick, left.

That's what the Gamemakers showed her; that is what Kemp believes. So it is right.

She rips at the blades of grass in front of her to keep him from seeing her smile. She does that now, thanks, Skye. "And when will they be getting here?"

"Soon," Kemp answers. He's too busy looking out and around to notice her new good mood. "Look. Listen."

Massie lifts her head, follows his finger as it points towards the part of the forest she'd killed District Five in. A wave crests over the treetops, tall and strong and a monster all on its own. It rears up, gets ready to go, and then crashes. After the splash, it is silent, but she knows the water is racing, swirling, killing.

On the other side, she hears the growls of the mutts. Not birds, she guesses. Wolves. Dogs. Cats. Something with fangs and claws and long, lean, powerful bodies.

Derrick can survive a flood like that, Massie remembers. He is a swimmer. He is from District Four. She hopes he is on that side of the arena.

She pulls at grass again.

Kemp breaks the silence with a question: "Have you had much fun?"

Her answer is no answer at all.

"I have," he says, like her silence means nothing, like she doesn't even need to respond for him to have this conversation. "I beheaded some kid, and it was so funny, the way he begged me to spare him. I almost did, just to entertain myself, but I thought better of it. You're the entertainment. My _prize_ for being the best. I decided to wait for that."

"Interesting." Massie lets the blades of grass go, flips her knife, and shoves it into the ground as deep as it will go without extending it. She pulls it out, does it again elsewhere, over and over.

"And," adds Kemp, "I got an even better weapon. A gift."

"Interesting," Massie says again.

"Do you want to see it?"

"No," she answers. "I want to be surprised by it when you kill me."

She feels like they are sitting in the training center of their school back in One, not in the arena of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games. It's like they're casually talking about the day, or their recent class, or how they imagine the Games will go when they finally get picked. When she turns her head to spare Kemp a glance, she sees the way his face has lit up, and she wonders if he's thinking the same thing. She always used to play along with him like this, discussing her death like the morbid teen she is. She never had any real issue with it back then, but now… The thought makes her sick, and so does Kemp, and the Capitol, and the knowledge that only one of them of the four left will win. Will _live_.

And even though she hates him, Massie still memorizes the planes of Kemp's face, the sharp cheekbones, the jut of his chin. This is a face she has looked at almost every day for ten years, has _loved_ for ten years, and she wants to remember it.

To her left, there is movement.

A body races through the trees, sliding into the safety the Cornucopia provides as a tidal wave crashes behind them. It is stopped by some unseen force, and it slams against it over and over, wanting to move but forever kept in one spot. They do not want them to die from water, or trees, or even muttations; they want them to kill each other. The last four, all put in one place with nowhere else to go. All there is left is death.

It is the boy from Eleven, Andy. He looks like he's been to hell and back again, and he probably has been. He's waterlogged, spluttering and hissing.

When he sees Massie, he takes a step forward, gets ready to defend himself. She doesn't move, head snapping in the other direction, where the mutts are, but he doesn't seem to notice.

"Nope," Kemp says.

Andy startles, his gun dropping to the ground.

"Not yours," explains Kemp. "Please wait for the other one to get here. You can have him."

Massie gnaws on her lower lip, waiting for Derrick to come bursting from the forest. Where is he where is he where is he?

"I'm sorry?" Andy asks. "Are you… are you _deciding_ who gets to kill who?"

"Yes." Kemp lays his hand on Massie's head, territorial and possessive. "It was always going to end with me and Massie, didn't you know?"

"Yeah, she looks positively fucking _thrilled_ ," Andy snaps. "That's not how it works, One."

"True, _Eleven_." The number falls from Kemp's lips like it's dirty, like it's worthless, and Massie flinches at the malice there. Everyone has a home. Just because it's not as extravagant and nice as One doesn't mean they should treat it any differently, doesn't mean Andy doesn't love it, doesn't mean he doesn't want to go back. "But I made sure it would work out how I want."

Massie shoots back as the words register, Kemp's palm falling from her hair. _I made sure it would work out…_ "You did _not_ ," she spits, because how fucking dare he, "you didn't even kill as many people as I—"

"Maybe," Kemp interrupts, "but let's remember what happened here, shall we? You just stood here. You did _nothing_ that first day. I killed everyone coming our way, like I was _supposed to_. You and Four were deadweight, which I find odd because you were all about _expectations_ and _traditions_ and _following the rules_ when it came to our alliances, but when we get to the bloodbath, you don't even act like you're supposed to! Tell me: did you fuck him yet, the kid from Four? Did you get what you wanted?"

Her knife digs into the ground again, the result of her anger, disgust, and annoyance, and she accidentally presses the button to elongate it. Something snaps beneath her hand—she really hopes it's a rock or some particularly hard dirt, or maybe she's found the center of the earth and did not just destroy her blade—but she leaves it, snapping, "You're a piece of shit. I did what I had to, and then I was _better_ after it. You cannot take this from me. You cannot take _anything_ from me." She pauses, pushing herself to her feet, and adds, maliciously, "Was fucking Skye all you dreamed of? I can't imagine she knew what she was doing since she was shit at everything else."

Kemp smiles, almost… _pleased_ with this turn of events. "I merely spurred on your bloodlust when I allowed you to kill the kid from Twelve. I made sure you got _here_." He strides forward, tucks the fallen strands of hair from her braids behind her ears, holds her face tight enough to hurt. "I _made_ you, Massie Block."

I

Made

You

Massie

Block

You

Made

I

There is a brief moment of surprised, infuriated silence where Massie lets his words sit, simmer, boil, like a pot of tomato sauce on a cold Sunday afternoon, and then she screams. Bloodcurdling, high-pitched, flabbergasted _shrieking_.

Made her. He thinks he _made her_.

She can't stop, can't keep the sounds to herself. The frenzy encompasses them, envelopes them, until it's the only thing Massie can hear. Not the growling of the mutts, not the washing of that colossal wave, not Kemp, not Andy. Just herself,

s

c

r

e

a

m

i

n

g

because Kemp thinks she is nothing without him, that he created her, that she has no say in who she is or what she does.

She killed _six tributes_. Six. One more than five, one less than seven, three more than the amount he killed.

She made herself.

Fuck him.

Massie stops suddenly as a figure bursts out from the other side of the Cornucopia, practically barrel rolling away from a particularly vicious mountain lion, all golden-haired and predatory. It roars, louder than Massie screamed; the trees shake at the intensity. It cannot move, though, like the wave cannot reach them, and it sits on its haunches, watching Derrick get to his feet again.

It never stops watching, even as it licks at its paws, hair matted with blood.

Derrick's mouth is forming her name, but he's not saying it out loud, and Massie is torn between being happy he is alive, right there, and not dead like she imagined, and screaming again because his leg, the same leg Kemp had stabbed, is hardly recognizable to her. It's _there_ , and he doesn't look too pained by it, but his pant leg is in even more ribbons than it was before, and the blood, the same blood on the lion's claws and muzzle, soaks his sneaker and stains the grass as he makes his way towards them.

His eyes scan her body as hers do his, panic leaving him with every step as he realizes she is fine, there are no apparent injuries, she is not going to drop dead in front of him—

They make eye contact, then, and she thinks she is going to cry, but she doesn't. She turns away, sees the positively gleeful look on Kemp's face, and feels her heart drop to her feet.

"Thank god!" Kemp shouts, clapping his hands together once. "The prodigal boyfriend arrives!"

"What," says Andy.

Derrick rolls his eyes, stabs his trident into the ground a little ways away from them—too far away from them, actually; Massie itches to touch him—and leans his body weight against it.

Massie's foot takes a tiny step forward, all on its own. Derrick notices it and shakes his head.

"You didn't know?" Kemp asks Andy, stalking forward. He pulls on Massie's braid as she does so, dragging her forward, and Massie reaches to grab his wrist, pulling him away. "Did you not pay attention? It's not like they kept it a very good secret."

Andy rubs at the space between his eyebrows with his free hand. The other grips his dart gun with white knuckles. "I was too busy trying to survive to pay attention to—"

But Kemp never intended for him to answer, and he continues grandly, putting on a show for them, and the people watching at home, tugging harder and harder on Massie's hair like she is a dog and he is her owner and she destroyed his new shoes.

"I am not _stupid_ ," he tells them all. "I am very observant. I know you had a closer alliance than the rest of us. I know you worried over each other, and you worried over that stupid little girl, and you disliked being away from each other. I know you lied about how he killed Nine, because knives do not do that, but that trident does, and I know you love him."

Massie hisses, smacking her hand against his chest. Her head hurts. It hurts so much. He needs to let go. She doesn't even react to his words, doesn't fight his accusations, because is he right? Does she love him? Is that why she cried when he was injured? Why she cried when they were separated? Why she retreated into a world where they lived together and ate together and it made sense? Is that why she can't find it in herself to kill him?

Why is he holding her hair like this? _Let go let go let go_ —

She takes his hand, squeezes his fingers. She can't get it right, can't find a way to break them—

It means nothing. He doesn't feel her. Doesn't care.

"How was it?" he asks Derrick. "Was it worth it? Is she any good? I haven't been able to get in her pants and she's had a crush on me since she was fourteen." Derrick stares back at him blankly, doesn't even react, but his eyes are trained on the way Kemp is holding her. "No matter," Kemp says. "She is still _mine_ , and you are dead. You've been dead since you decided to play her little game."

Andy bleats, "Are we supposed to let you talk and talk? Massie, why don't you just—"

"Shut _up_ , Eleven," Kemp growls, and he's crazed enough that Andy does what he is told, eyes wide. "You see, I've changed my mind. I was going to wait until you two were out of the picture, but I think it will be much better if I kill Massie first, and let you watch. How does that sound?"

No no no no no no _NO_

Massie wrestles against him, finally finds the room she needs to take his thumb, and _breaks_.

"Bitch," Kemp snaps. He drops his hand from her hair, lightening up the pain there, only to wrap it around her throat. His thumb is broken and he is still using it like it is not and Massie is starting to choke. Pain really is a mindset. She never believed it before.

She kicks and coughs and scratches and tries to remember how to get out of a hold like this but can't think of anything she ever learned in training it is like it is gone and she never spent the years she did under careful watch of professional fighters and—

"Go ahead," Derrick says, carelessly. "Kill her. See if it breaks me."

Massie stops struggling immediately.

Kemp laughs. "Would you look at that, Massie, baby?" he coos and it is mean and it is hurtful and it tears her heart right in two. "You still have really shit taste in men."

She looks at Derrick only to find his face closed off and his eyes blank.

The ocean spray roars in her ears.

She can't breathe.

The floor beneath her is sand, not grass.

She closes her eyes.

The hand around her throat is now a hand held in hers.

She is gone.

 **...**

The sunset is particularly beautiful today. A part of her is shocked by it, which is weird, because she's seen her fair share of sunsets before. Part of her, though, thinks she hasn't. Something about artificial light and tall buildings and everything being too bright to even see stars, but she's never been in a place like that before. She's only ever been in pretty places, like here, on the beach, where the sky is turning orange and pink and purple in front of her, and a boy is holding her hand while they watch it.

It is so nice, and she is so happy, and she goes to tell this boy that only to find he is not as happy as she is.

"What are you doing back here?" he demands.

The setting sun makes him look even more beautiful than he already does, and she takes it in hungrily like she may never see it again. She reaches up to touch his cheek, but he pulls back, which upsets her.

"Why did you do that?"

"What are you doing back here?" he asks again.

"What do you mean?" she questions. "I'm always here. I live here."

He shakes his head. "You don't. You decided to hide here."

"Hide? Hide from what?"

He lays his leg flat out in front of her. "Look."

What she sees she hates. "What happened? Why is your leg like that?" The skin is shredded, in pieces, like it has been clawed at, bitten at. There is a hastily treated stab wound beneath his knee. If he does not get this checked out soon, it will get infected and he may lose it. "Why is your leg like that?" she asks again, bordering hysteria.

The sight of it makes it hard to breathe, like someone is choking her, and she scratches at her neck, trying to quell the panic. She was never good with panic, always tried to ignore it, because if she didn't acknowledge it, it wasn't there. But she can't ignore this, not the racing of her heart or the blood all over him and the sand, and she can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe.

He's not getting up either, and he doesn't seem upset about his leg, only stares at her.

"You need to leave," he says. "You can't hide forever."

"Hide from what?" she asks around gasping breaths. It's hard to talk, to think, to _be_.

"Leave," he orders. "I don't want to see you again."

What?

What?

What?

"Why?" she asks.

He looks at her again, and she can't decipher the emotion in his eyes. He hates her? He doesn't hate her? He's sad? He's happy? What is it? Even his next words make little sense. "You don't belong here."

Of course she belongs here. This is the only place she's ever belonged. The only place that makes sense. No one can hurt her here. But he is hurting her here? Why is he hurting her?

Stop hurting her stop hurting her stop hurting her he would never hurt her he said so he said he said he said!

She gasps, gropes around her, scrambling for something concrete to hold on to. She finds a knife in her pocket, but why is a knife in her pocket? She's never killed anything. Never had to kill anything. She doesn't even catch the fish they eat.

But she has killed, hasn't she? She's killed people. Why has she killed people? Were they bad? They couldn't have been, they looked so scared, and they are filling her mind, and she is still unable to breathe, but she is gripping that knife tighter and tighter, making it meld into her fingers, and then she is stabbing in front of her, into the sand, stabbing, stabbing, _stabbing_ —

 **...**

The weight loosens.

She can breathe again.

 **...**

She is stabbing, stabbing, stabbing.

Over and over, panting for oxygen, methodically bringing her blade in and out of the body before her.

They grunt and gasp and she thinks they say her name but she doesn't care because they tried to choke her to death and she knows with a certainty she's never known anything before that they need to _die_ or else she will.

 _Go. Win._

 _Go. Win._

 _Go. Win._

A cannon blasts, but she doesn't hear it.

Stab.

Stab.

Stab.

She is aware enough to taste the blood on her lips, to feel it dripping off her knife and onto the ground, onto her hand, onto her arm. It gets all over her somehow, and she can't stop moving even though her opponent has stopped his own, and is just laying there. Not breathing, not fighting back.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Someone pries her away from her task. It is an important task, so why would they do that? She needs to finish it.

It is finished, someone says.

But it is not. She knows it is not. Her opponent needs to be without his fingers, and without his head, and without his mouth. She needs to get rid of them because they've done nothing but hurt her, ruin her, own her.

"No!" she shrieks, and she kicks, and she bites, and she cries. She tastes that, too, salt mixing with copper. "Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!"

No, they say.

"Why do you care? Why are you bothering? Leave me alone!"

Her knife is pried out of her hands, but not fast enough, and she shoves it through skin, hears the sharp intake of breath and knows she hit her target, whatever it was. As long as it was this body holding her back she does not care.

I'm sorry, they tell her, and they hit her over the head.

 **...**

She is in a kitchen now, hands wrapped around a warm mug of coffee. It is black, with just a hint of sugar. Not too much or it is gross. Cinnamon rolls are cooking in the oven. There is a plate of fruits in front of her to nibble on. She reaches for a strawberry.

"You came back."

"Are you angry?"

"No," says the boy across from her. He looks very familiar and she knows she likes him a great deal. "You did what you had to do. I'm sorry I told you to leave."

"It's okay," she tells him. Is it? She doesn't know. She drinks her coffee.

"Do you know what your name is?"

What a stupid question. "Of course I do."

"Well, then, what is it?"

She sighs, annoyed, and opens her mouth to respond—only to realize she doesn't know.

She blinks.

The boy smiles. "Do you need help?"

"No," she replies stubbornly. "Give me a second."

"It's your _name_ ," he says. "It shouldn't take a second." Then, sadder than before, "Please. You can't hide here."

"Why would I hide?" she questions. "There isn't a storm coming, is there?"

The boy leans forward to grab her hand. "There will be. There are always storms on the horizon."

She shakes him off and stands to look out the window. The sky is the perfect shade of blue. The sun is shining. There is not a cloud in sight. Even the sea is behaving. From here, she can see all the children jumping waves and swimming.

"I don't see anything," she says.

He comes up behind her, rests his chin atop her head. "When you remember, you will see it," he advises, quiet, "and when that happens, you will have to make a choice."

Choosing sounds scary, but she chooses things all the time. What to eat, what to wear, what to say. This cannot be any different, but she does not want to do it.

"Let me help you," the boy pleads. "I want you here, but I don't want you like this."

She braces her hands on the window. A cloud rolls across the sky, but it is white. Not a storm. Why does she feel like one is coming though? How had he known?

"Something terrible is happening," she whispers.

"Yes," he agrees. "Something terrible." He pauses and wraps his arms around her waist. "Tell me your name."

She knows now, just as she knows the clouds coming in will be filled with rain, and the winds will pick up, and the children will have to come back inside.

"Massie," she answers.

"Tell me more."

"My name is Massie Block. I am from District One. I volunteered for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games. I just killed my district partner."

"Yes. What else?"

"You're Derrick, and you said something I didn't like, so I came here."

Derrick brushes his lips against her temple. "Anything else?"

She grips his hands at her waist. "I think I love you despite all of that."

She feels him smile against her skin and then: "Massie," he says, pleading, reverently, apologetically. "Wake up."

 **...**

"Massie," Derrick says, pleading, reverently, apologetically. "Wake up. _Please_ wake up. I'm so sorry—"

 **...**

Massie's head is pounding when her eyes flutter open.

She recalls a vivid dream where she is living in a beautiful house by the sea. The imagery there fades as the arena comes into focus, unnaturally green grass, and tall trees, and a sky painted a blue that is so fake it makes her frown. The world has never looked like this. The imperfections that make it so uniquely pretty are erased to create a perfect atmosphere. It is as sickly sweet as chocolate is on teeth, but the bitterness bleeds through anyway; as nice as this place is, the ugliness is in the children they throw in here. Beautiful trees, lakes, and meadows—they're inhabited by terrible teens who throw knives and carve into skin and hack away at body parts.

It makes Massie sad. She wants to go back to her nice beach, to the kitchen with the fruit, and the world that was only overcome with storms because she remembered this place. If she never had to remember the arena she'd be alright.

Derrick is washing her face, hands soft and careful as he cleans her skin. Her eyes roam over him, diligently removing the blood from her skin, and her breath hitches when she sees the tear tracks running through the dirt on his cheeks.

He doesn't seem to really notice she is awake. His hand curls around the back of her neck, fingers brushing along her throat, and he frowns, like he doesn't like what he sees.

Before he can see she is fully conscious, she forces her eyes closed. Why, she doesn't know. Maybe she wants to give him his privacy. She's never seen him cry before and it is upsetting to her.

He brings the wet moss to her face again, rubs it as slowly as he can to not aggravate, and sniffles. Has he been crying this whole time? She doesn't like it. "I'm sorry," he says again. She knows he's said that a lot. "Please wake up so I can explain. I… I lo—I just need you to wake up."

Massie doesn't think she really wants to be awake, or _alive_ , if the memories that assault her are anything to go by.

They play before her like a movie. She doesn't remember most of them.

She is seven, and she is small for her age, and Kemp Hurley is several inches taller than her, mouth twisting into a grimace. "This is my partner?" He groans. "You're so _tiny_."

"So are you," Massie shoots back. He is rude. She doesn't like him. "Anyway, we don't get to fight until we're ten. We learn now."

Kemp Hurley rolls his eyes. "My dad has already let me throw spears at targets in our backyard."

Massie smiles, big and nice and disarming. "My daddy uses an _axe_. Do you think I don't know how?"

She is ten, and it is her birthday, and Kemp Hurley is bringing her a cake. It is vanilla. "I know you don't like vanilla," he says, cutting a slice, "but I do."

She eats the whole thing just so he can't.

She is thirteen, and Kemp Hurley gifts her with a boomerang he stole from the equipment closet. "You always like when things come back to you," he says.

He has a black eye when she sees him next. You are not supposed to take things out of that closet without permission. Interestingly enough, no one asks her to put it back.

Kemp spends three months staying late after school.

She is fourteen, and Kemp Hurley is handing her a bouquet of flowers he picked on his way to training. It made him late. He has to do more laps than the rest of them, but he doesn't care. He says, "Bet you can't pick out the poisonous ones."

She pulls the calla lilies and baby's breath out in one fell swoop and Kemp kisses her, mouth sweet from the gum he chewed and soft because sometimes he is nice.

She is fifteen, and Kemp Hurley convinces her to skip Friday's training so he can take show her something. They sneak into the trainers' offices, and he pulls a piece of paper from their binder, slaps it with his hand.

"Look," he says. "We're next."

Their scores are displayed in yellow highlighter. She is the best girl in their group. Kemp is the best boy. One of them will win next year. One of them will bring glory to their district again.

"Kemp," she starts to say, but he silences her with his mouth against hers. Sometimes when he gets excited he gets affectionate. Massie wishes he'd be like this more often.

She is sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is kissing her cheek on that Reaping stage instead of shaking her hand. "It's you and me, baby," he says, and the words fill the district, fill the world. "You and me against the world."

She is still sixteen, and the Kemp Hurley in front of her is not the Kemp Hurley she grew up with. This Kemp Hurley is obsessed with killing her where the other versions of him were content with loving her.

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is running his hands over her legs, trying to get her to succumb to him. She wants it, but she's mad at him, because he only wants to kill her, and she pushes him away. Puts a wall between them.

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is scaring her, looking at people in her alliance in a way he's only ever looked at kids in their training class. Those kids never come back.

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is choking her because Derrick Harrington is a threat to him and everything he worked for.

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is choking instead because she's dug her knife into his throat.

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is losing too much blood to fight back.

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is dead beneath her, but she can't stop stabbing him, over and over, because she's mad at who he is. Who they turned him into.

 _I made you, Massie Block_.

 _I can't wait to kill you._

 _I was going to wait until you two were out of the picture, but I think it will be much better to kill Massie first, and have you watch._

 _I am the only one that gets to hurt you._

 _I've seen the way you look at me._

She is still sixteen, and Kemp Hurley is dead, and she killed the only friend she ever had.

Derrick has to know she is awake now because she is sobbing against the moss he's using to wipe her face.

"Massie," he breathes, and she can see his hands fluttering around her. He doesn't know what to do. Neither does she, but she keeps crying.

If only seven year old Massie could see herself now. She'd be so ashamed.

A sob gets caught in her throat.

" _Massie_ ," Derrick says again. He presses his palms against her cheeks. She can feel how relieved he is, but she only wants him to go away.

"Stop," she whispers. "Stop stop stop."

His hands drop. "Stop what?"

"Go away." Her throat is tight.

"Go… away?"

She nods. "Go away. Go away. Go away."

Memories of her relationship with Kemp are not the only thing she's been assaulted with.

She remembers everything about Derrick, too.

His bad flirting, which was actually good, apparently, because it affected her.

His insistence on training with her, on eating with her, on making her friends with Ripple, who is dead, who was twelve, who deserved better.

His hand as it woke her up on that roof, his body as it trained with her until four in the morning.

His steadfast presence throughout most of these Games—beside her during watches, beside her as they slept, beside her as they ate.

His loyalty to Ripple, who is dead, who was twelve, who deserved better.

His hands against her face. His lips against her mouth. His words, which she believed.

His kisses. His touches. His trident and how he wielded it.

His trust in her and, in return, her trust in him.

His words, minutes, or hours, or days ago, she doesn't know, that made her want to die. _Go ahead. Kill her. See if it breaks me._

She is crying again, but now she doesn't know why. All she knows is her insistence that he leaves her alone. She doesn't want him touching her, doesn't want him near her. Go away go away go away.

She killed her district partner. Her best friend.

The boy she was highly attached to said her death wouldn't bother her.

There is a reason they tell you to not forge relationships during the Games. She is recent proof of why.

Derrick doesn't move that much farther away from her, and Massie hates it, so she crawls back until she's hitting the side of the Cornucopia and he is out of sight. She knows he's not really gone, but she doesn't care. As long as she can't see him, she's fine.

She presses her face into her knees, lets the sobs take her over.

Even her father hadn't believed in her. Or maybe he believed in Kemp more than her. Whatever it was, it doesn't matter. No one thought she'd be the last of District One standing, and here she is, the reason their winner, their diamond, the one they've been rooting for, is dead.

If her memory serves her, she stabbed him thirty six times.

The only reason she did not hit forty is because Derrick pulled her away, physically dragged her, ignoring her attacks against him. He had to hit her over the head, that's how inconsolable she was, but it's not like she really remembers that. The memory is in her head like a video she watched years ago. It is vague and slightly familiar, but it is there, and she knows she's seen it. All she needs is a reminder and reminders are everywhere.

The knife she used is still laying there, where she imagines his body must've been before they came to take it away.

The grass is stained red, red, red, and it will probably turn brown once time has passed.

Her arm hurts from the nonstop motions. Her hand is still stuck in the position it was in when she held the weapon. When she stretches it out, it aches.

She killed Kemp.

She killed Kemp, but he was killing her, his hand around her throat, squeezing squeezing squeezing. She did nothing wrong, but she feels like the world is ending.

"Massie," Derrick says again, calling from the other side of the Cornucopia.

" _Don't_ ," she snaps, because even though she is dying from Kemp's death (from her murder of him), she is losing everything else from what he said.

 _Go ahead. Kill her. See if it breaks me._

She always knew Kemp was going to kill her, or Kemp was going to die. There was a script she was supposed to follow, once upon a time, but she met Derrick, and he showed her a world no one let her believe in, and she changed her mind.

That script said Massie was supposed to lie low and let Kemp get all the glory before she died, but Massie flipped it so it was even. At the end, if it came down to Kemp and Massie, it would be a glorious bloodbath. It would not be a story she was helping play out. Whoever won won fair and square because they were the best.

Nowhere in that script did it say Derrick was supposed to egg on Massie's demise, but he did, and it hurt her, and—

 _Go ahead. Kill her. See if it breaks me._

She would have never said that about him.

 **...**

She is back in District One, laying on one of the mats, trying to catch her breath. She hears Kemp a few feet away, throwing spears at dummies in the corner.

"You gonna lay there all day or what?"

"I'm tired," she snaps. She's just spent the past two hours throwing boomerangs across the room. She's hit targets, missed getting sliced up herself, and found out she can kill four people in three minutes if she's fast enough.

(She will be fast enough.)

"So?" Kemp demands. "I'm tired too but you don't see me stopping."

"That's what is going to get you killed," she tells him. "You need to listen to your body. You keep getting bad marks because of that. You aren't superhuman. You need _rest_."

He snorts and she hears him throw another spear. The sound it makes is obvious enough that he's missed the target by a long shot. "Rest gets you killed," he hisses, angry at himself. He stalks forward, takes another spear from the rack, and throws.

It also misses.

"It does if you aren't in the Career alliance," Massie replies. "You need to learn to let go. To trust. I will never let anything happen to you."

"Yeah, and for how long?" Kemp snaps. "It's not like the two of us can win, so when does your generosity end? I need to learn to throw on no sleep. On no rest. I will learn how to kill twenty-three people without sleeping for a week if it means I win."

Massie sighs, used to his tirades, and pats the mat next to her. "You can learn that all in the Capitol," she proposes. "Come lay with me for a bit."

"No, I cannot be my best if I am cuddling with you." Kemp throws again. The aim is better, but he is still missing. "Fuck, why can't I get the heart?"

"You're tired," she says.

"I'll be tired in the arena," he retorts.

"And that is a different kind of tired," she comments. "Here, we can train and train and it means nothing because we aren't in there, fighting for our lives, fighting to win. There's a difference between training for it and actually doing it. We will not know what we will do until we're faced with it and we can't keep trying now. The Reaping is tomorrow. We've learned all we can." She turns her head, sees the bunching of his muscles, and swallows. "Come lay with me."

"I—"

"Kemp, we've already proven we're the best. What are you trying to do now? There are no other obstacles in our way."

He slumps, neck and then shoulders and then the rest of his body falling under the sweetness that is the ache of being tired, and he lets go of the three spears he is holding to pull himself over to her. He drops like he can't hold his weight, and rolls into her side, pressing his face into her shoulder.

"I can't allow myself one moment of weakness," he tells her.

"You can," she replies. "I will be there to watch you."

Kemp is silent, his breath soft against her, and she thinks she is asleep until he says, "You say that now, but wait until you meet the tribute from Four."

"Chris Abeley?" she shoots back. "Why would he matter to me?"

"No," says Kemp. "Derrick Harrington."

"He's not the volunteer from Four." Massie pushes herself onto her elbows, or tries to. Kemp wraps his arms around her and brings her back down. "Kemp," she insists, "the volunteer from Four is Chris, right? That's what Cam says."

"Yeah, sure," Kemp agrees sleepily. "But listen, I am not going to matter to you once you meet the boy from Four. You should trust him. He's the only honest person in these Games, excluding his partner. I feel bad about killing her, you know. She was only twelve. She shouldn't have been here, but… she had to go. I wish Landon hadn't murdered her like that. It should have been quick, but he wanted to rile the boy." He sighs against her neck. "I should have done it, and I should have killed Landon. I'm sorry the girl died like that."

"Kemp, I don't understand." They haven't killed anyone yet. They haven't been Reaped yet. What is he talking about?

"Massie, I'm not going to be the person you know in the arena," he tells her. She can tell he's falling asleep. "Don't feel bad when you have to kill me. I won't feel bad when I try to kill you. It's part of the game. It's why we are there. We've spent our whole lives getting ready for this. I just need you to know something."

She blinks and it is much harder to catch her breath now. It is like it is just out of reach, teasing her. She wants it, she needs it, but it is nowhere near. "What?" she croaks.

"I've loved you my whole life," he admits, "but I didn't love you enough. If I did, I would've found a different girl to volunteer. I would've spared you. I would've made sure you were here when I went in the arena and I would've made sure I came back to you."

Massie's heart stutters.

"But I didn't. I let you volunteer because I knew all of your weaknesses and I knew you would have my back until I didn't need it. I know I am going to kill you." He squeezes her again and she imagines he is crying. There is wetness against her shoulder, but he never cries, doesn't do that, hasn't since they were eight and nine respectively, so why would he do it now? "You want to know who will love you more than me and will mean it?"

Her throat is too dry for her to answer.

"That boy from Four. Derrick." Kemp sniffles and he makes up for that by pulling her too tightly against him. "Massie, with him in the picture, I'm already as good as dead, don't you know? You need to talk to him."

"Why would I talk to him after what he said to me?" she asks, because even though she doesn't know him she knows he said something she doesn't like.

 _Go ahead. Kill her. See if it breaks me._

"He was playing the game," Kemp replies. "He didn't mean it. He was egging me on to see what I would do, so he could figure out his countermove. You know I can't ignore taunting. That's also why I get bad marks here. I let people into my head and I don't rest when I need to."

She doesn't say anything.

"I loved you when I was supposed to," Kemp continues, ignoring her silence, "and you loved me when you needed to. That time no longer exists. Tomorrow I will stop loving you because I can turn that off. Tomorrow you will love someone else. It will make me angry but I will understand." He runs his fingers through her hair, sloppily, tiredly. "I am not going to live. For some reason, I know that, but I want you to."

"What do you mean? We both know everyone wants you—"

"They do, but that's not how it will turn out. Chris Abeley will not volunteer, but Derrick Harrington will, and you will fall in love with him. No one anticipates what you will do, and because of that, I will die. I will die and I will be happy about it because for the first time you will be doing something you _want_ to do. Your whole life has been series of decisions based on me. You never did anything for yourself." He yawns against her collarbone, presses his forehead against her skin. He is burning up. "I need you to do one last thing for me, though."

"Okay," she whispers. She doesn't like this conversation. Doesn't like how vulnerable Kemp is. She blames it on the fever he obviously has. There is no other way he'd be this open. "What is it?"

"I need you to wake up," Kemp tells her. "Get out of your head and never come back. You did what you had to do, and now you need to deal with it." He grimaces and she can't tell if it is from his sickness or the honesty in which he is speaking to her. "There is a boy out there who loves you and you are punishing him. Don't do what I did to you. Don't push him away. Let yourself love him in his entirety."

Massie shifts so she is looking at him, at his tired eyes, and his hot skin. "You loved me? Really?"

"Of course I did," he replies, "but I never deserved your love in return, even if I got it. You gave it to me because it made sense. That boy from Four… he's your first real choice in years. You deserve that. You deserve someone who has never fantasized about your death."

"But he said—"

 _Go ahead. Kill her. See if it breaks me._

"He never meant it," Kemp tells her. "Believe me. I know. Regardless of what he said, me killing you would've destroyed him. Me strangling you practically made him undone. He's only ever fantasized about your future together." Kemp smiles sadly, though the malice she's grown to know in him is still set there, in his teeth. "Wake up. Tell that boy how you feel. You are allowed to make your own choices." His voice shudders, like he can't believe he's about to say what he is going to, and he grabs her hand. "Win the Games on your own terms, Massie Block, and know, no matter what happens, I was always proud to be your district partner."

 **...**

She is still crying when she returns to the arena, having left Kemp in the recesses of her mind. His words, though, do not leave her. She just wishes the real him had said them to her once.

Her voice breaks when she calls out, "Derrick?"

He responds in an instant, her name sung like a prayer. He does not move to find her, respecting her wishes, and she realizes she is so cold without him. She hiccups, pressing her face harder into her knees, and asks, "Do you love me?"

There is no hesitation in his answer.

She chokes on a sob, cries wracking her body, and she squeezes squeezes squeezes her legs to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible. She is not good with emotions, has never been, really, with who her family is, but even if she was, she never would have expected such strong feelings to be cultivated in the length of time she's been here. In the length of time she's been Reaped, because she's felt this way for a while, hasn't she? She's just ignored it, ignored it until it mattered.

She is unaware she's even answered him back until he's standing over her, and she looks up, furiously wiping her tears away.

"Really?" he asks.

"Really," she says, even though she doesn't remember. She just knows.

Derrick drops to his knees, and there are apologies and explanations on his tongue, all of which she doesn't acknowledge. For some reason, she understands. She understands why he said what he said in the same way he understands she didn't mean to stab him when she did, because she did, she stabbed him. It's right there in his side. He's bandaged there, so he must've received a gift in the time she's been catatonic—does that mean their alliance is broken?

She lays her hand against that very bandage, stares at it hard. She did that. Why did she do that? Because he pulled her away from a dead body? Because he tried to reach her in her madness?

"I'm fine," he says. "It wasn't bad."

Massie is not inclined to believe him. The bandage is pink where the wound is.

"Hey," he says. "I'm fine. You're fine. It's… it's okay."

It's not okay when you kill your district partner, but when your district partner is not the person you remember him being maybe it is.

"How long has it been?" she asks.

Derrick chews his lower lip, holds out a hand. She takes it. "I don't know," he tells her. "I'm no good at reading the sun here, but it's been… a while since the hovercraft came."

"Is it just us now?"

"No," he says. "Andy ran when you started stabbing K—when you… you did… when you—"

"When I started killing Kemp," she supplies. The words hurt her, but she pushes past them. It is the truth. It is what she did. Just because Derrick is afraid to say it to her does not mean it is not real. "So there are three of us left still."

He nods. "I couldn't… I tried," he offers, "and if he doesn't get any help he'll die soon, but I'm sure someone will send him something, no matter how expensive it is. Eleven hasn't gotten this far in years, and—" He breaks off but Massie hears it.

 _Eleven hasn't gotten this far in years and you're not all there and they know I won't kill you._

"Right." She tries to swallow around these facts but finds them too disgusting to acknowledge. This is not the Games she was prepared for. Once it got this far she was supposed to be dead… or close to it. She doesn't know what she's supposed to do now that Kemp is dead and she is in the final three. She looks to Derrick, who has been strong and steady through this whole thing. "What now?"

"We should sleep," he provides, and it is then that Massie notices the darkness around her. She's been hard to reach for hours and he's never left. That makes her want to cry some more.

"We should," she agrees. It is nice to be near someone who knows the importance of rest. "Where?"

Derrick throws a suspicious glance towards the forest around them. "I don't trust that," he tells her, "and I don't know where Andy ran off to, so I think here is fine. We can go in the Cornucopia."

"We can?"

"There's an opening right there." He points to the left side. "I didn't notice it until today."

Massie nods. "Okay." She wonders if he knows how much she trusts him.

"But before we do that, I just want… I want you to know that I didn't mean—"

"I know," Massie says. "You did what you had to do."

"It didn't do anything," Derrick says. "I just stood there and let him strangle you and I tried to find anything to do without hurting you but there was nothing and then you were just… you disappeared, Massie, and I didn't know where you went. Even Kemp noticed. One second you were present and then you weren't, and then… then you were back, and you were just… you were doing everything I wanted to do, but I was stuck."

She caresses his face, remembers Kemp's words— _there is a boy out there who loves you and you are punishing him_ —and says, "You helped."

"I didn't _move_ ," Derrick snaps, more at himself than her. "There's no way I could have helped."

"But you did," she insists. "You made me leave. I got so scared that I found my knife."

Derrick's brows furrow. He doesn't understand. He won't. He wasn't there, in her head, not really, but all that matters is that she was there, and she made him, and her version of him was the sensible part of her brain that told her to fight back.

"You helped," she tells him, more insistent. "Without you in my life, I'd be dead and he'd be the Victor."

"Without you in my life I'd be dead too," Derrick whispers. "Even if I never met you I would know something was missing."

Massie sniffs around a fresh batch of tears, hears Kemp again as he says _win the Games on your own terms, Massie Block, and know, what ever happens, I was always proud to be your district partner_. She knows real Kemp would never say that, but her mind gave her something he never did. It gave her closure.

"Let's go to sleep," she offers. "Tomorrow is another day."

"But before then," Derrick says as they settle into the horn of the Cornucopia, draped with blankets they found in crates, and surrounded by weapons they don't normally use, "can I kiss you?"

She doesn't use words to answer him.

He continues to apologize against her mouth, more upset than she is that he said what he said and did not do what he wanted. Massie shakes her head, whispers _stop_ , and takes control of the kiss, telling him everything she's already said and more.

It is a kiss that lasts longer than it should with cameras and all of their country watching them, but they do not seem to care. When she pulls away to breathe properly, he presses his mouth to her jawline, her throat—though he is soft and careful there—marking her up like they are home in their own districts without any other care in the world. She winds her fingers in his hair, tugging tugging tugging, and he swallows a groan against her skin, nipping at her collarbone. They kiss like the teenagers they are and for a moment—a long, long moment—they forget where they are and what they are doing there.

The sun begins to rise and they are still kissing, lips swollen and eyes wet, because somewhere along the line they started crying over what they are doing and what they can never have.

Derrick falls asleep after he kisses her forehead, soft and sweet and something that tells her he cares for her more than his mouth kisses can say. She takes a bit longer to follow his lead. The birds sing their good morning song when she finally allows herself to go under, wrapped up in Derrick's embrace, hidden from Andy in the center of the Cornucopia.

The last thing she thinks of is the words she cannot rid from her mind.

 _Win the games on your own terms, Massie Block_.

 **...**

Kemp pins her to the ground. "It's dangerous, but it's a good plan."

Massie struggles against him, wriggling and moving, and heaves her shoulder up. He is a rock above her. He cannot be budged. "I'm nervous."

"Make it count," he replies. "Kill Eleven first and then do not take the easy way out. Make it good. Give them a show."

"Obviously," Massie bites back. "I'm not stupid."

"Stop crying and maybe I'll agree." Kemp smirks at her, annoyed with normal bodily functions. She is too but she hasn't cried in so long that she physically cannot stop herself now that the dam has broken. "It's embarrassing."

She throws her shoulder again. Nothing. "Do you know where Andy would be?"

"Why are you asking me? I'm dead."

"You're the one who crazily studied the districts," replies Massie. She ignores his last comment. That can't be right. He's currently winning their wrestling match. She can feel his heartbeat.

"Didn't bother with Eleven," Kemp admits. "Didn't seem like a threat."

"How wrong you were," Massie murmurs. "He's in the final three."

"Ask your boy toy," Kemp suggests. "He let him go, didn't he? He knows where he ran off to. He's not going to like your plan, you know."

"Who?"

Concern washes over his face, so unlike him, and Kemp releases her, sitting back on his haunches. "Come on, Massie, remember."

"Remember what?"

Skin opens up with knife wounds above her. Blood spills from them, staining his shirt and pooling on her stomach. There are holes all over his body: his arms, his shoulder, his chest, even his throat. She counts them in her horror, there are thirty-six in total, and when he opens his mouth again—how can he open his mouth again he is bleeding out he is dying what's happening—he says something, maybe it is _remember_ , but she can't hear it over her screaming.

 **...**

Inside the Cornucopia is not a good place to scream. The sound bounces off the walls, intensifies it, makes it loud loud loud.

Massie does not know why the screaming won't stop and slaps her hands over her ears. She presses harder and harder to block out the noise but it is still there. Stop stop stop stop _STOP_!

"Hey, hey, hey." Derrick's voice seems to overtake the screaming and he is all sleepy and his words are slow and Massie drops her hands, overcome by this warm fondness spreading through her heart. _Ew_ , part of her thinks, but the bigger part is overcome at the sight of Derrick right now. She thinks this is her favorite version of him. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Is she okay? An interesting question. The answer is no, because she is here, in this Cornucopia, and it's actually really cold, but the answer is also yes, because she is here, in this Cornucopia, and he is with her too.

Then she realizes she was the one doing the screaming and flushes.

"Oh," is all she says.

Derrick yawns, reaching his hand out to drowsily run his fingers through her hair—which is no longer in braids, when did that happen?—and slowly blinks until he is awake.

"You're pretty," he tells her.

She frowns.

"You are," he says. "I wish…"

"No." Massie presses her fingers to his mouth. He nips at them, little kisses that make her cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. "Don't say it."

"But I wanna," he whines.

"We need to find Andy," she says, changing the subject. "We need to get rid of him and then—"

"Then one of us needs to die," Derrick finishes.

Massie doesn't like that, but she nods anyway.

They don't know how long this will take them, so they roll the blankets up as tightly as possible and shove them in their packs, with that dried jerky Massie hates, some can of beans probably, purification tablets, and a few canteens of water.

"Do you think they'll lead us to him?" she asks, adjusting the straps on her bag. It's heavy and hurts her shoulders. Guess her suit only protects her from offensive attacks, not weight.

Derrick moves to help her. "Dunno," he says. "Didn't work out well for them last time. They only got one."

"You think they wanted it to end then?"

"Yeah," he answers. "There was no way back in the forest after we all got here. It was like there was a shield up around the whole thing, locking us in place."

"How did Andy get away then?"

"I guess… I guess you gave them what they wanted."

Thirty-six stab wounds. Not forty because Derrick pulled her away.

"Right." She marches over to that spot of grass in particular and snatches her knife up. It's one of the tiny jeweled ones she stuck in her jacket, not the nice gift someone had given her. She broke that in the ground.

The blade is still covered in blood. It's old and dry. She inspects it carefully, imagining herself shoving it in and out of Kemp's body. The thought doesn't seem to horrify her as much as it did before.

Derrick makes his movements loud and deliberate as he comes up behind her. "Do you want me to clean that?"

"Are you always that noisy when you walk?"

"No." He shows her, moving around to stand in front of her. "I wanted you to know I was coming."

She twists the knife in her hands, runs her thumb over the last piece of Kemp she has left. "Afraid I'll stab you again?"

Derrick laughs, sort of. It sounds kind of uncomfortable, like maybe he _is_ afraid she'll stab him again. He says, "Nah. Didn't want to scare you. Do you want me to clean that?"

Massie takes her lower lip between her teeth and peers up at him. Is he afraid of her? He doesn't look it. "No. It's okay." She sticks it back in her inside pocket and offers him her hand.

She counts the seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Fours seconds after she's put out her hand he is taking it, a frown pulling at his brows. Does this mean he is? Is he worried she's going to kill him? But isn't that what he wants? For her to win? He said that, right? But Derrick says a lot of things, she's found out, and sometimes he doesn't mean them. What has he said that he means, then, and what has he said that he doesn't? Did he mean what he said yesterday or did she build everything up in her head? Her head is a nice place to be sometimes, she should go back, where the beach is pretty, and the kitchen is stocked with all her favorite foods, and Kemp tells her the truth, and Derrick holds her hand without hesitating, and—

And she can see it all now.

It's pulled away sharply when Derrick says, "Are you sure?"

"Sure about what?"

"Not cleaning it." Their fingers are twisted together now, like they belong there, like they are one person, not two.

"Oh. Yeah. It doesn't matter," she tells him. "It will just waste time."

He frowns again, and Massie realizes it is because of _this_ , because of her knife and Kemp, not because of stabbing him yesterday.

She lets go of his hand abruptly and tugs at his jacket, pulling it away from his body and tangling it around the strap of his backpack.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

She pulls the bandage off his side and looks intently at the skin there. It is covered in an ointment she remembers from days ago and the wound is closed, the puckered edge pink against his tanned skin.

"No damage done," he tells her. "All healed."

"Hardly," Massie snaps. "How is are your insides?"

"Fine."

She pokes it.

"What is with you and always doing that?"

She ignores him, drops to her knees, and inspects his leg. He is standing on it, and it is clean, there is no blood or skin or any sign that he was brutally attacked by anything, just two thin lines down the calf. There was a mutt, right? She remembers one, but she also remembers an ocean, and a kitchen, and a training room, so she isn't sure.

"Sage sent more medicine," Derrick provides. "I should be fine for a few days."

A few days. The medicine has an expiration date? That doesn't make sense.

Massie crawls around him, looks at the back of the same leg for the other wound he has there. She still doesn't know how he got it, just that it made her cry, and she thinks she may cry again now, with medicines having expiration dates and everything. She knows she will because even though he'd quite hastily applied the cream to this too, the cut is ugly and red and kind of yellow and how does he not feel it getting infected by the second?

Her heart is in her throat and his hands are under her armpits, picking her up and crushing her to his chest. She is shaking now. He is saying something to her, comforting her, but it is not what she hears.

She hears: _Then one of us needs to die_.

It comes to her with stunning clarity, like she can see the future: They will hunt down Andy together. Derrick will help her kill him. It doesn't matter how long it takes. The longer the better. All the while he will stop putting the medicine on the back of his leg and the wound will get grosser and grosser until he can't walk, until he can't do much of anything, and the last cannon will sound, and Massie Block, District One, will be the winner of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games.

 _Win the Games on your own terms, Massie Block_ , comes Kemp's voice, ringing in her ears.

"Give me your backpack," Massie orders, pushing Derrick away. He stares at her, confused, and she yells, "Give me your backpack!"

His eyes are wide as he does what she demands, never leaving her face. She sifts through it, pulling out all the things he'd meticulously packed, and letting cans roll away from her and water to spill from canteens. Still, Derrick does not move. Just watches.

She finds the canister of ointment buried beneath a length of rope. She places it gently on the grass next to her, fights against her trembling hands to pull a knife from her pocket, and uses it to saw at the one of the blankets.

It doesn't slice through it like she wants. The blade is dull, covered in dirty blood, and Massie does not let herself think what knife she pulled out before she is throwing it across from her, away away _away_. She finds another knife, this one sharp and shiny and covered with tiny diamonds at the hilt; she finishes what she started with the other, rips the blanket into a strip of fabric.

"Massie," Derrick starts.

"Shut up," she returns. "I hate you. I hate you so much."

"You don't mean that," he says, though his voice wobbles when he gets to _don't_ like he's not sure of it either.

"I told you to be quiet," Massie says. "And I do. I do hate you. I mean it a lot. I mean it so much."

He takes her words to heart, staying silence, but she can sense the confusion and the hurt radiating off him as she slathers the back of his leg with ointment and ties the piece of blanket tight. Then she sits back, suddenly tired.

Derrick turns to face her, and he is blocking the sun again, like he did days ago, and Massie forces her to look up at him. Her eyes sting like she's cried for a very long time, but her cheeks don't feel wet, and she doesn't remember doing that today. Maybe she is all out of tears and this is her body telling her that even though she wants to, she can't.

"Can I talk now?"

She shakes her head _no_.

Instead he shifts his weight from one leg to another. She can tell he's feeling less pain now by the relief flooding his irises and that makes her angry again.

"I hate you," she says.

He opens his mouth but she shakes her head for a second time.

"You don't get to leave me," she insists. "You don't get to die on me."

"There can only be one winner," he tells her, voice soft. He winces a bit as he drops into a crouch, getting on her level. "We'll get Andy, and then it will be you and me, and I will not kill you." He runs the pad of his thumb over her eyes, her nose, her mouth. "Don't put the ointment on my leg again."

"No," she replies, hard, unmovable.

There is a sadness in his eyes that makes her ache down to her very core and she presses down on her sudden urge to scream. "There can only be one winner," he repeats.

" _No_ ," she says again. She grasps his wrist, holds tight. "Either we leave this arena together or we don't leave it at all."


	5. Part Five: Recap, Normal

**_So turns out yesterday was Wednesday and today is Thursday, not Tuesday. I had off of work for the Lunar New Year and that completely messed with my schedule (and my head). Guess that goes to show I just go with the motions and get up when my alarms go off and very rarely check my calendar to see what day of the week it is. Yikes._**

 ** _Sorry for the day delay! This next bit makes me kinda nervous as it is different from the rest, but I am exploring Massie's mental state/subconscious and the end of the Games would not write themselves correctly. It was hella annoying._**

 ** _Also once upon a time this was only going to be a threeshot and I'm currently editing part eight. Why am I like this?_**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Five_

* * *

 **re·cap | rē** **ˈ** **kap  
** noun  
 _a summary of what has been said.  
_ synonyms: abstract, brief, inventory, outline, run-through, synopsis, wrap-up

* * *

When Massie wakes, it is to a white room. It's _so_ white, this room, that it actually feels claustrophobic. More claustrophobic than the closed-off dome that was the arena, trees for what seemed like miles, but everyone and everything contained in one spot. It is bright, here; she squints as light bounces and reflects off everything and realizes her arm is itchy.

In her skin is an IV, and it must be pumping pain killers or something of that sort into her system because she feels no pain.

She feels no pain, but sees the thin covering of bandages around her stomach and knows, instinctively, that if she touches it, it will feel tender. But, again, she feels nothing.

She remembers nothing, too.

Wait. That's not true.

She remembers saying _either we leave this arena together or we don't leave it at all_ and she remembers the mutts.

Between that and after… nothing.

But if she is here, with pain killers coursing through her veins, and a pillow beneath her head, and bandages around her body—she's won, hasn't she? Massie Block, District One, _Victor_ of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games.

Which means… it means…

 _Either we leave this arena together or we don't leave it at all._

There is, quite honestly, nothing worse than whatever she's feeling right now. She's too sluggish for physical movements, but her mind is racing a mile a minute, and her heart pounds in her chest, and her tongue dries up along with her throat, and she is dizzy. She may just keel over and _die_ from the intensity of her emotions, and she wants to turn them off, off, off, but she can't. There is no button for that anymore. The Games found that button and ripped it right away.

She doesn't like the internal turmoil, doesn't like how her eyes well up with tears and her head gets all stuffy, so she lifts a hand slowly, like she's wading through molasses, and she rips the IV out of her arm.

It takes a second for it to register, but when the pain hits her, Massie welcomes it. Physical harm is much easier for her to handle—she can pinpoint where it is and what to do—and she lets it crash over her like angry, violent waves.

When it becomes too much to handle, she vomits, right there on herself.

She waits exactly fifteen minutes before hitting the little red button by her head.

 **...**

She is wobbly on a boat, the bobbing waves making it hard for her to keep upright. Derrick snakes an arm around her waist to help her, pulling her flush against him; he smells like sunscreen and the ocean around them, very familiar and comforting and reassuring. He kisses her cheek, nuzzling his nose into the skin beneath her ear, and whispers, "Be careful there."

"I've never been on a boat before!" she exclaims, indignant.

"We have all the time in the world for you to get comfortable," he returns. "Come, I wanna show you something."

His hand is strong in hers and he takes his time getting to the side, overlooking the water. He does this because she doesn't know how to walk on this thing when he can probably run, skip, jump, do flips without falling over. He points towards a moving, swimming mammal. Massie leans against the rails, squinting against the sun.

"It's a dolphin," he explains. "They're fun if you can swim with them. There should be more around if there's one here."

"A dolphin," she repeats. "A real dolphin? Not a—"

"No." And Derrick is smiling wide. He must like them, these animals. "They're real."

"Real," she breathes, because she's heard of that, of _real_ animals, but she hasn't seen any. Just her dog, and that's different from this. A part of her she can't recall correctly knows District One only has birds, the occasional squirrel, and a lot of stray cats. Most are mutts, if she's honest, and they are programmed with video and audio to spy.

The dolphin breaks the surface of the ocean again, jumping and disappearing beneath the waves.

Massie watches it for a while. How interesting a concept it is to be free like that. To be able to swim when you wanted to, and show your face when you wanted to, and… and just _be_ when you wanted to. Massie doesn't know why she's so jealous of an animal, but.

Derrick presses his hip against the side of the boat, watching her watch the sea, and smiles. It's the one she likes the most, the soft one that somehow splits his face and makes him look happier than she's ever seen him. "Pretty girl," he murmurs, most likely to himself, and he tousles her hair, sticky with sea salt and messy from the breeze.

She bats a hand at him, a delayed reaction, and replies, "My hair is knotty and my skin is peeling on my nose."

"I love it," Derrick says, and she knows this to be true. She's seen it on his face that he's always wanted to take her here, as far away as they can possibly get without leaving, to where he is at his happiest.

She peers up at him, noting the freckles that are more defined on his cheeks, the way his skin has tanned and hers has only gotten pink, and how his eyes seem to sparkle the same way the ocean does every time the sun hits it just right. "Why aren't you experiencing this?"

"I am a child of the sea," he says grandly.

"And that makes you immune to… to…" She rubs her face, regrets it instantly. More than her nose is burnt, it seems. "This?"

"Yes." He laughs, and he's pulled a tin of sunscreen from his pocket, dabbing some on her nose, the apples of her cheeks, her lips.

"I don't think I need that there," Massie says, smacking her mouth together. The sunscreen tastes like citrus and whatever else they put in this stuff. Leaves, maybe? Roots? But that doesn't make sense. Why would something associated with the sun and the ocean and sandy beaches be so natural-tasting? Why does it make her nervous and uncomfortable, like the corners of her face are split open and aching? Shouldn't it taste like coconut?

"You don't," Derrick replies, and he is rubbing his thumb against one of the spots that itch like he knows about it, but she doesn't remember telling him. "I just wanted an excuse to touch your mouth."

Massie feels a smile curve beneath his hand. "You don't ever need an excuse."

"Right," he agrees, leaning forward.

"Don't!" Massie cries. "You just put sunscreen all over me!"

"As if I've never swallowed sunscreen before," he murmurs. There is a momentary pause where they look at each other, and then he is kissing her, or she is kissing him, and they both taste like a perfect summer day. Even the rubbing of his nose against her burns doesn't feel so bad.

When he pulls away, his mouth is not covered in sunscreen, though, it is stained a blackish-purple, like berries, and Massie screams, and screams, and screams, because he's left her by herself, falling over the side of the boat. The crash of his body into the waves sound remarkably like a cannon used in the Hunger Games.

"Massie!" his mouth says as he sinks into the sea, but that doesn't make sense. He's already dead, he died with that same mouth pressed to hers, but wouldn't let her die with him, how _selfish,_ and now he is sinking, sinking, sinking, but he is saying her name as he does so. It is insistent, loud, and awful, over and over.

"Massie! Massie! Massie!"

It is the shaking of her arm that reels her back, and it is the dual-colors of Cam's eyes that she is looking into now, not an endless sea that has just swallowed up probably the only person she's ever wholly cared about.

"Ow," she croaks. Her throat hurts.

"Sorry." Cam stares at her wide-eyed. "Did I hurt you?"

"That's what the _ow_ implies," she retorts. It's supposed to be teasing but the words fall flat.

Cam gnaws on his lower lip, looking apologetic and a little bit ashamed before saying, "You were screaming. I didn't know what to do."

"Oh." Massie shrugs and finds out that hurts. "It's a thing I do now. The screaming."

"They're looking into finding a treatment for that," says Cam. "They think they can—"

"What? Find whatever nerves in my brain frayed and snapped and glue them back together?"

He stops talking, looking away. "I don't know," he admits. "I just… they're trying to fix you, Mass."

Right. Because this can be fixed.

"Good luck," she mutters. In the shadows in the corner, she thinks she sees movement and the flash of long blonde hair, but when she squints, there is nothing there.

"I'm glad you're okay," he continues. "I'm so glad you're alive."

"If being alive feels like this, I'm not," Massie replies. "Everything hurts."

Cam tentatively places his hand over hers. She stares at it. It seems wrong to have it there, so out of place. There should be a much tanner one clutching at her fingers, shouldn't there? "It'll pass," he offers. "You hurt for a bit and then they make you good as new."

"Seems dumb."

"They call it a flush of the system."

Massie calls it stupid. It's like they want her to suffer for as long as possible, like spending an indeterminable amount of time proving her worth through murder isn't enough. She doesn't respond to him, the pounding in her head, right between her brows, getting the better of her.

She sees him watch her, though, tense and coiled. He looks like he's ready for anything, like he's ready for her to snap. It is the same as when he was in the arena himself; he may have been all of fourteen then but he'd been one of the most impressive characters out there, just waiting, observing, preparing.

She does not like that. She is not a _threat_ , and so focuses on her head, focuses so hard that she sees yet another flash of hair, long and buttery, and Skye stalks out from behind the door, sharp, sharp arrow in her hand, terrifying gleam in her eye. " _You don't even smile_ ," she hisses, and Massie flinches so hard Cam shoots forward.

"What happened?" he asks urgently. "What hurts? Should I get a nurse?"

"Nuh-no," Massie stammers, gripping his wrist. "I'm fine. It's just… I thought I—saw—"

Cam sighs, eyes tortured, and sags forward, leaning his forehead against hers. This only makes the pounding worse and confuses her; they've never purposely been this close before unless they were teasing. She can count every one of his eyelashes. "You can't do that during your interview," he tells her quietly.

"Do what?" she questions, too loudly it may seem, because he shushes her. "Do _what_?" she asks again, this time softer.

"That." He blinks at her, looking more scared than she's ever seen him. "See things. People. Or whatever it is that happens in your head."

It is nauseating, the way he casually talks about the break in her subconscious, or maybe that is just because she sees Landon when she looks right into his blue eye, all malicious and bloodthirsty and counting down all the ways he can kill her. She doesn't move her gaze from the green one.

"I can't help that," she says.

"You can," he insists, but he is not a doctor and he is not in her head, so he doesn't _know_. "You have to. When they question you later, you need to act like you did before you entered the Games. I need you to be that Massie."

That Massie was charismatic and witty and could charm the pants off of anyone. That Massie is hard to find. She tells him so.

"I don't _care_ , Massie," Cam breathes. He is too close, too close. No one should be the close, except for— _no, don't think that_. "Fake it. Find it in yourself to be normal for twenty minutes and then for another three hours and then again in six months when we have to tour the fucking country."

 _Be normal_ , he says.

Normal.

As if being traumatized is not allowed. As if she is not supposed to be affected by all of this. As if her being affected is wrong, and embarrassing, and not allowed.

She doesn't like that she is considered not normal. What is normal?

* * *

 **nor·mal |** **ˈ** **nôrməl  
** adjective  
 _conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.  
_ synonyms: common, ordinary, customary, conventional, accustomed, regular, traditional, not Massie

* * *

When she doesn't answer, he continues hurriedly, "Myner is already pissed off because of that stunt you pulled. I don't know what he's going to do about it, or if he's done anything already, but you can't embarrass him like that again. Not twice. People hardly survive that once."

"What are you talking about? What stunt?" She knew her strong alliance with someone other than Kemp would be frowned upon, and her displays of weakness were not ideal, but _come on_ , she was frazzled and frenzied and she had to _kill_ people! That takes a toll on anyone, even a Career, but she wouldn't call that a _stunt_.

"When I told you to keep playing the angle, I didn't mean play it so—wait," Cam stops suddenly as her questions finally hit him, and he says, "What do you mean 'what stunt'?"

"I mean 'what stunt,'" she replies. "I didn't do anything."

Cam catches his jaw before it can drop and cracks it. He pulls away, dark hair falling over his face where there is a pink spot where her head had rested. "Massie," he begins, swallowing. "What's the last thing you remember?"

And so she tells him.

"But," he replies, "but what fills that void?"

She doesn't want to tell him she's imagined worlds in which she is safe and sound, hardly in District One, almost always in Four, with a boy whose very name makes her heart hurt, so she doesn't. She merely clears her throat and says, "Other things. Nothing."

"You _moved_ , though, Massie," he tells her. "You… you _did_ things. For hours, you did things."

"I was on auto pilot," she suggests. Now she gets what Dune Baxter felt on day eleven, and every day after that for five years. She wonders how he is doing after the death of his sister. Massie blinks and for a moment, Cam is Ripple, and she is smiling, explaining the merits of the different kinds of sutures she knows.

Cam leans all the way back now, palms pressing into the hospital blanket covering her mattress. "This is not good," he murmurs, mainly to himself, but Massie hears him. She doesn't need him to say that for her to know, and she shifts in her bed, trying to get more comfortable.

"If the doctors clear you," Cam starts, finding the strength in his voice again, "and they _will_ "—he says this with so much conviction Massie is certain he is not talking to her, but someone else—"your closing interview is tomorrow."

" _Tomorrow_?"

"Tomorrow."

"But… but I just woke up! I've had no time to prepare or wrap my head around what happened or, or, or—"

"That's the point," Cam says gently. "The interview works best when the victor is unhinged, when they still think they're in the arena. It… provides the best entertainment." The word sounds strangled in his throat. "They've had to push yours back for some time, too, Massie, so the Capitol is growing restless."

"Some time?" she asks.

"You've been," he starts, but changes his mind. "You left that arena three weeks ago. You've only been lucid and… and… _pleasant_ once in that length of time, and it is right now. They make me be the one to greet you every time you start coming to."

"Every ti…" she trails off, finally seeing for the first time the growing black and blue on the left side of his face, where his blue eye is, and the way his nose seems more crooked than usual. She gasps. "Did I…?"

Cam gives her one firm nod. "Don't even worry about it," he tells her. "When I came out from the sedation, I took my IV and tried to stab your father in the throat with it."

"Should have," Massie mutters.

He chokes out a laugh, startled, and takes her hand. "If you hadn't woken up on your own accord in another week, they were going to take whatever version of you they got and put you on that stage with Merri-Lee."

"And if I wasn't…"

"They'd find it good entertainment, I wager," Cam offers. "It would be a loss if you killed our favorite TV personality, but… it would make for good watching." The lines around his mouth deepen. "So I need you to work with me here. I'm still your mentor."

"And you know what's best?"

"And I know what's best," he agrees. "Do what you need to do to get out of there"—he points to her head—"and into here"—he waves around the room—"permanently."

"I don't know if I can," Massie tells him honestly.

Permanence has never been something she's ever managed. She's always been so focused on training for the Games, Games she was supposed to _lose_ , that she doesn't know what is involved in doing something and knowing it will last. _Being_ someone and knowing that is who she will be forever, not for the next month, with every eye in the world on her.

"You will do it," he orders, like he used to order her to get back up when he was able to beat her in hand to hand combat. "You will be punished if you don't."

Massie bristles. "By who? _You_?"

"No," he says. "Not me." He is looking up at the ceiling.

Massie turns to see what's captured his attention and finds herself blinking at a hanging plant. "What?" she asks, but she sees a tiny spider crawl around the leaves, weaving a web, and she knows, just like she knew in her head that the birds and the squirrels and the cats back home are cameras.

They're being watched.

"Should you have said most of that?" she mouthes to him, careful not to move her head too much.

"No," he answers, loud and clear, and she knows, then, as her heart sinks to her feet, that if she does not get her shit together, Cam will be punished too, just for warning her.

 **...**

 _Glad my superstar is awake!_ reads the card that came with the beautiful bouquet of flowers. They are varying shades of purple, Massie's favorite color, but she cannot stomach it, or them. _The doctors tell me you are cleared for the Recap tomorrow. Words cannot express how happy this makes me. The world has been eagerly awaiting your return._

 **...**

Jakkob and the rest of her Glam Squad cry, loud and fussy, when they see her for the first time. It's truly a mess; glitter sticks to the backs of their hands, a new face tattoo is ruined, even eyelashes fall down cheeks in clumps. Whether they are happy to see her or appalled with how she looks, she'll never know. It could be either. It could be both.

But Jakkob's wet eyes are bright when he gazes upon her and she knows at least one person isn't terrified of what she is, what she's done. "We'll fix it," he promises.

And they do.

Finally given a mirror after hours of tweezing, waxing, cutting, and painting, Massie sees the vision they've created of her. She honestly doesn't know what she looked like prior to this, but it's the first time in such a while that she's felt herself. She's lost a bit of weight in her face, but that's alright; they've accentuated this by dusting her cheekbones with a highlight that makes them sharper than she's ever seen them. They glisten like a blade under the moonlight. It seems deliberate.

Her eyes are smoky, lined with white on her waterline to make them bigger, and her lashes are long, tipped with tiny diamonds. Her mouth is pink and matte this time around and she is delighted to see those hideous scars have been corrected, like they were never there in the first place. She stills feels the twinge, but she will deal if it means she does not actually have them there.

She has tiny braids pulling her hair back, meeting in a bun at the back of her head, the rest of her hair falling around her shoulders, tiny jewels expertly weaved into the waves that remain. It looks like a curtain of stars when she moves, so she twists and flips and poses in the mirror, watching her hair sparkle.

"You like it?" Jakkob asks. His District One voice is soothing, like hot chocolate on a cold day.

"Yes," she answers. She does not need to see her outfit to know she will like that, too.

"You are a diamond in the rough," he tells her, smoothing down the back of her hair. "I was rooting for you. Not the boy."

She knows he is talking about Kemp, and her stomach does a little flip. "I killed him," she whispers. "I killed him, and I don't…" _Don't really know what I did, just that he is dead, and I will have to watch it all for the first time with everyone watching_ me.

Jakkob envelopes her in a hug, careful not to ruin all of his hard work. "You did what you had to. He was killing you." Then, as a careful afterthought, he adds, "He was always so awful to you. The other one—"

"Don't," Massie whispers. "Please don't."

"My dear," Jakkob murmurs, pulling away. He holds onto her shoulders and gazes into her eyes. His own are puzzled, flickering with uncertainty, but that fades the longer she looks into them until he is back to normal albeit a little bit sad. She gets it. She's sad too. "Come. Let's dress you. Don't want to be late for your big moment."

They put her in black. It is a short little number, tight around her body, kind of reminiscent of the bodysuit she'd spent the latter part of the Games in. Her shoulders are bare, the sleeves starting just below and ending at her wrists. The shoes are dark too, but they glimmer in the light, and Jakkob adds a lit bit of glitter to her bare legs to make them pop.

It is hard to believe that less than twenty-four hours ago, she was in so much pain. The Capitol can do wonders. It is a shame they only do wonders here and nowhere else.

Jakkob tosses her hair this way and that to get it to lay exactly how he wants it to. He still seems sad, or maybe worried, but Massie doesn't have a chance to ask him why. Her heart fills suddenly when she thinks maybe he, too, is worried she'll fuck up during the Recap and he'll be punished alongside her and Cam—how many people can she destroy if she doesn't do what she's asked?—when a knock sounds on the door.

"It's time," Jakkob says, "are you ready?"

Massie lets her corners of her lips turn up slowly until her best smile is taking over her face. She can tell she's still got it when Jakkob sends her a tentative one back and squeezes her hand. "Of course," she replies. "I was born ready."

She hopes.

 **...**

As the anthem plays, William Block sidles up to President Myner, feigning nonchalance as he shoves his hands in his pockets, graceful in a way he should not be. "Thank you," the larger of the two murmurs, a deep baritone that is almost drowned out by the drums.

"Do not thank me just yet," Myner replies. "She has not passed all my tests."

"Surely you would not…" William trails off, watching the county's crest fade into images of his daughter's face. Her stats appear as if someone is typing them, her age (sixteen, though now she is seventeen, having missed her birthday whilst in the arena), her weight and height (inconsequential), her preferred weapon of choice (boomerang and knives, now that that secret is out), and her body count (seven, highest of these Games). "She is not like the others, Cole. She is my—"

"Your daughter, yes," Myner interrupts. The crowd roars when the final word is added to the bottom of the screen: _Victor_. All is going well. "But those who do not play the game correctly need to be punished to remind them to. I am giving her more chances than I have given others, Will, or have you forgotten about your little protege? Her mentor?"

William is bigger than Myner, with massive arm muscles and broad shoulders from continuous and extensive wielding of an axe, yet he still seems small compared to the man next to him. "She is more than just my daughter," he retorts, anger being held back on a leash. "She is _your_ goddaughter."

"Yes," agrees Myner, "and every day I am so pleased you bestowed that title upon me. It is my greatest treasure." He turns his head and pierces William with his stare. "But she will need to prove to me, to _everyone_ , that she is as she was before the arena. She needs to prove to me she is a Victor, and the arena did not change her, and that boy meant nothing. If she cannot prove herself useful…" The threat hangs in the balance, just as Kendra had, the first of many punishments bestowed upon people close to Massie the second she stepped a toe out of line.

William had not been too attached to the woman, but he'd cared for her enough for this death to sting.

"Your boy talked to her," Myner continues. "Tried to warn her. Let's hope his advice takes. I'd hate for Pamela to lose another son, wouldn't you? The heat in One has been unbearable this summer."

"Harris?"

"Accidents happen. Oh, look, it's starting."

William unclenches his fists and turns to find his seat. He is normally always seated towards the front, with Kendra on his right and another Victor from One on his left. This year, his right is filled with Pamela Fisher, who avoids his gaze and digs her nails into the armrest shared between them. It seems he is not the only one hoping this Recap ends swiftly.

 **...**

It is already unbearable and it hasn't started yet.

Massie stands in the wings as Merri-Lee makes her introductions, painting Massie out to be something she is completely certain she is not. A hand slides into hers, tangles fingers together, and pulls away.

"Stop that," Cam whispers.

"Stop what?"

"The nervous fidgeting. Massie pre-Games wasn't nervous to be on this stage."

"Massie pre-Games hadn't killed seven people, almost got strangled, and really had to face her mortality head on," she retorts. "That does a lot to you."

Cam ignores her to ask, "How do you feel?" This is code for _are you seeing dead people or drifting into a fantasy_?

"Fine," Massie replies, which is the truth. She spent the past half day laying brick over brick in the wall in her mind, sealing up her triggers and her worries and all the things that make her heart race, like the book Cam smuggled her while she was getting her hair done said. She doesn't think it's correct, but who is she to know? She tricked a doctor, but they hadn't shown her a condensed version of the most stressful weeks of her life. She isn't sure she can trick everyone here, but she knows she has to.

"Fine like you're annoyed with me or fine like you can walk out on that stage and make them all love you again?"

"More so the first than the second, but both," Massie answers.

"Cheeky." Cam chuckles, poking her side. "Glad to see you're still in there somewhere, Block."

She swipes at him and he leaps back, grinning. "Hey! Don't mess with the face. I need it."

"Mm," Massie hums. They've rid him of his bruise— _her_ bruise—and straightened his nose, and in the process they whitened his teeth and made his skin paler, if that were possible. "I don't see the appeal there, honestly."

"Oh, you wound me," Cam mutters, running a hand through his hair. The light shines on him, making her words null and void; he is a beautiful man, always has been, even without the Capitol's interference. All the citizens here love him, flocking to him whenever he has a spare moment. It doesn't help that his shirt, black to match her, like they are a unit, like they are standing in solidarity of something, is sheer enough to see the body he possesses beneath it. It is other worldly, which explains why it's always mentioned in gossip magazines and on Merri-Lee's talk show.

"You'll be fine," she promises, patting his cheek. "I'm sure someone will patch you right up tonight, after the party."

His smile falters just a bit, but he holds it up. Merri-Lee is still reading cue cards to the audience, so he grabs her wrist and _squeezes_. "Massie," he says urgently, speaking over her when she says _ow_ and berates him about manners, "Massie, there's something you need to know before you go out there. I can't have you finding out like this, in front of all of them."

She stares at him quizzically. "What?"

"Massie, they're going to tell you at the end because the Capitol is cruel, and it's evil, and it will always want to break you, but you can't, okay, _you can't_. You need to be strong out there, and every day after this."

"You're freaking me out, Cam," she says quickly, voice becoming shrill. She feels something chipping away at the wall in her mind and closes her eyes, forcing it to stay upright. _Not now, not here. Later._

"I'm sorry, Massie, I'm so sorry, but—"

" _And here she is, Victor of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games, Maaaaaaassie Block_!"

There is no time, she can't leave them waiting, and Cam drops her hand, shuts his mouth, and pushes her onstage.

She is frazzled and a little shaken up by the intensely terrified look in Cam's eye—the green one only, because she still cannot look at the blue—and there is a trip in her step before she recovers herself. She struts to the armchair waiting for her, lifts a hand to wave at her fans, and flashes an adoring smile at someone who whistles appreciatively at her.

This is normal. This is great. She killed seven kids and they love her for it. She is not upset. She is not crazy. This is normal. This is great.

Merri-Lee stands to hug her, and Massie returns it enthusiastically, cooing over the host's newest hairdo. It's hideous, but she doesn't need to know that, and the woman actually flushes at the praise. "Nothing compares to yours, though, my lady," the woman compliments. "Are those real?"

"Yes." Massie runs a hand delicately over her waves. "Diamonds, straight from One."

"Fitting," Merri-Lee says, admiring them with the teeniest bit of jealousy. "Beautiful jewels for a beautiful girl. I imagine this look will be all the rage come tomorrow morning, am I right, ladies?"

A cheer goes up and Massie smiles, this time genuinely, because that is good news for Jakkob. There is nothing greater than a stylist's work being coveted in the Capitol.

Merri-Lee lets that swell for a moment, and then, quite seriously, turns to Massie. "Three weeks we've waited to talk to you, so let's not dawdle a second longer! Now, tell us, how _does_ it feel?"

Massie makes it through the question and answer easily, which she knew she would. It is easy for her to talk, that much was proven to her when faced with the team of doctors and Cam. She can still manage to hold conversation as she used to. Merri-Lee skirts around a few things and hardly mentions District Four at all, which Massie knows is what they really want. She imagines that will be covered while they watch the Recap.

That is what she is most nervous about, as it begins. The screens that simply stated her name now roll tape of One's Reaping. She stares at herself, strong, determined, and terrifying, and feels whatever is left of her heart break when she sees Kemp, watches him avoid the pretense of shaking her hand and kiss her on the cheek.

Her hands start shaking so she sits on them.

After that, it goes by rather quickly. Nothing of note happens in the beginning, except she sees that Derrick had killed the boy from Ten, too, during the bloodbath when she wasn't looking. It had been quick and probably painless, and he used his hands for that, like he did with Nine later on. If Massie pays careful attention, it looks—it looks like he was going after Massie, Ten, and Derrick had merely strode over, one eye on Ripple's tiny form, the other on Massie, and just… snapped his neck. Just like that. But Massie is not allowed to analyze moments she knows nothing about or moments that have to do with him, will not allow herself to, so she watches herself kill Claire of District Twelve.

It is still a shame that girl scored so well and did not get to show anyone why, but Massie does not care. She can tell by the fire in that girl's eye, a fire that does not die as she does, that she would have made a formidable opponent. From what Massie remembers of her time in that arena, she did not need another person against her like that. It is good she killed her earlier on. If she hadn't, perhaps Claire of District Twelve would be sitting here instead.

She is asked meaningless questions here and there, her thoughts on what was going on in the moment, and then the footage pauses. She knows this night. It's the night everything went to shit. She's asleep with her feet in between Derrick's—actually her foot is _hooked around_ his, how fucking embarrassing—and Ripple is too far away from them, why is she so far away? She's looking at their legs when Merri-Lee poses the question.

"What, in your opinion, is the most defining moment of the Games?"

"What do you mean?" asks Massie.

"Well, while you recovered, we all voted on our top five favorite moments. One of them is coming up right here, but I thought I'd find out what was important to you before we move forward."

 _Important to me_ , Massie thinks, and she knows she can't, shouldn't, mention anything that has to do with Derrick or Ripple. She can't show weakness, not now, but the words are out of her mouth before she properly stop them.

"When I found that salve in my jacket pocket after… after this night." She juts her chin at the screen, palms clamming up even under her thighs. She prays that's the only part of her body reacting in this manner; she cannot be sweating on stage. Not only would that not be a good look, not under these lights, but it will be a point against her and a reason to have a punishment administered. She shouldn't even be saying what she's saying, but she can't stop. "The one that Ripple put there. I always wondered why she did and how she seemed to know I would need it."

Merri-Lee looks rather disappointed in her answer and leans forward to whisper, "She knew what Skye wanted to do. Overheard them when she was out picking fruit. When you came back from killing the boy from Twelve—which we _luhhhhh-v'd_ , didn't we?!"—cue obnoxious cheers—"she had begun making that salve for you."

Massie doesn't know what to do with this information. She stares at Merri-Lee, unwaveringly, and compels herself to remain stoic. _Do not cry, do not cry, do not cry_. That little girl knew she wouldn't make it very far but she still made sure to leave Massie with something that would help her.

"That's remarkably sweet," she forces out. Does she sound indifferent? She can't tell. There is a roaring in her ears.

"And you're sure this is the moment you want to choose? The salve?"

 _No, I shouldn't have said that_ , she thinks, _but I can't swap it out for something else now._

"Yes, of course."

"May I ask why you picked that? Forgive me, but it's such a dull and unmemorable moment in the grand scheme of things! Surely you think the death of your district partner to be more defining than that. He spent the entire time eagerly awaiting to kill you and you did not give him the chance!"

The Capitol is cheering for her for that and they are not even there yet. They have not passed the senseless murder of a twelve year old, and they do not care a twelve year old died for their fun, and they do not know what that is doing to Massie's insides. Her heart is twisting, and her stomach is rolling, and someone has used a pick to chip away at her wall. A brick loosens.

She hears Kemp's voice through the small space that brick creates: _You should take it back and say that_ is _what is most important to you. I was always number one and until you replaced me with an overgrown golden retriever who spent most of the Games with his tongue down your—_

"No," Massie says forcefully, blocking him out, trying to patch the hole in her wall. It does not work. The brick crashes to the ground. Kemp's eye level with the empty space, staring right at her. "No, not that. That was… that was… significant, yes, but Ripple giving me that salve… it reminded me that people can still be kind when faced with hatred and fear. Kindness is hard to hold onto when—"

She stops, because that is the wrong thing to say, and she doesn't know where the president is but she can _feel_ him and his ire.

"Killing Kemp is definitely in the top two, though," she finishes lamely.

And the boy in question punches a fist against her wall, expanding the hole just a bit more. _No_ , she begs him, _not here. Not now. Please wait._

 _Why should I?_ he asks. _You didn't show me any mercy when you stabbed me…thirty-six times. Should I remove thirty-six of these bricks to make it even?_

 _No!_

Kemp smirks and it is mean and he winds up again. _Too late._

He's knocked three more bricks out of place by the time they start rolling what has to be, quite frankly, the worst night of her entire life.

If there is something she never wants to see ever again, this is it. She wishes she could scrub her eyes and her brain and her ears clean. She wishes she could scream and scream and not look, but she's not allowed that, she needs to _not care_ , but how can she? Ripple is _twelve_!

 _No_ , Landon corrects her, because now he is there, helping Kemp demolish her wall. _She_ was _twelve. She_ is _nothing but dead._

They're asleep onscreen, Massie, Derrick, and Ripple, and Kemp trails the sharpest edge of his sword along Massie's body, standing above her and watching her sleep. She doesn't remember this, wishes she never had to see it: it's oddly intimate and incredibly territorial. She is glad for herself that he gets called away to discuss the plan with Landon and Skye. There is no telling what he'd do to her if he was alone.

"No. I said nothing too damaging," he hisses at Skye, who pouts, and glides a hand over his bicep. Kemp swats it away. "Think of something different."

"Why do you get to have all the fun?" Skye demands.

"I don't," Kemp replies, and the hatred he has for the blonde shines through his eyes, loud and clear. "I'm sharing with you, aren't I? Just _don't_ kill her."

Skye brightens. "So I can do what I want?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Kemp sighs. "Remember: I want her alive."

It is like Massie has been punched in the gut. Seeing it, hearing it, watching Kemp do exactly what Skye said he did… She swallows the bile inching up her throat, feeling oddly betrayed.

 _If only he didn't like you so much_ , Skye begins, because of course she's joined the Terror Twins in their task of dismantling her wall. Are the Capitol cameras catching her shaking yet? _It would have been so easy. You wouldn't have woken up. You'd just be…_ dead.

Massie shuts her eyes, tries to force the girl out of her head. She imagines Landon or Kemp gripping her by her hair and slamming her against the brick until she's bleeding and doubly dead. It is a nice thought, and she almost thanks them for participating in it, but they aren't real, so…

It's quiet in her head now.

Quiet in the room, quiet on the screen.

She wishes it weren't.

The older kids stand over Ripple, and Massie accidentally bites her lower lip so hard it bleeds, ruining the pink of her lipstick, but there is no time to worry about that. Landon is taking his collection of blades and pinning Ripple to the ground, using her clothes to anchor her. He does this until there is one left, his favorite blade—it's rusted and has jagged edges and has definitely never been cleaned before—and he takes it, and he thrusts down hard, and he stabs Ripple right in the thigh.

Massie presses down hard on her hands, so she does not remove them from beneath her thighs to cover her ears the second Ripple starts screaming.

On screen, Derrick is not even awake when he shoots up.

Ripple is screaming and yelling and crying and begging and she's calling for him over and over, and Massie gets it, she does, her heart is doing the same thing, and Derrick is—he's running away? Why's he running away? This is not something he would do, he would never, he wanted to _protect_ —

Oh.

 _The trident_.

While all this is happening, Massie doesn't even wake. Nothing. Not even the slightest movement. She is out cold.

It is then, on this stage, that Massie finally _gets it_. Male Twelve wasn't a present. Maybe it was from Derrick, but from Kemp, it was a way to tire her out. They wanted to make sure she couldn't help them. This night, they wanted to kill both of them, both of the tributes from Four, and Massie was too closely tied to them to be allowed her maximum energy.

She'd thought this plan went into motion after Derrick called him a dick, threw him to the ground. It'd been in the works for longer than that. Days, maybe. They'd always wanted to kill Ripple first. Getting both of them was just icing on the cake.

Massie brings in a shaky breath.

She is being pulled away now, and Massie is relieved. They will relive her scars, and Skye's mania, and Skye's death, and she will not have to see what happens back at their camp, and wait, what are they doing why is the screen being split in two oh my god _no_

Even though she doesn't want to, she watches, horrified, unable to look away, as Landon continues his stabbing. Through her stomach, her arm, the other thigh—he uses only his best blade for this, pulling it in and out of her body. Kemp just stands there, watching, and farther away Massie is getting her face carved up. She feels it then as if it is happening all over again. She cannot help the fingers that rise to touch her mouth, checking to see if her skin is breaking in time with Skye's ministrations.

Landon forces the weapon into the flesh of Ripple's shoulder and the girl screams so loud and long and terrible that Massie, present day Massie, the one right there, in the armchair, _yelps_.

Massie's hands itch to cover her eyes, but she manages to convince them, along with her arms, to hug herself around the middle.

Landon leaves the blades in Ripple, lets her die slowly and painfully.

Massie is going to throw up.

It takes so long, and that is all there is to see, because she has blocked out her own part in this. Can't see, won't see, isn't seeing the way she's choking on blood while Skye hovers over her.

She digs her nails into her sides. A harsh sound, sharp and swift, interrupts the swell of gurgling and sobbing that has become the soundtrack to this night, and Derrick's trident _flies_ into Landon's neck. Like every other time Massie has seen him use it, the strength of his arm and the weight of it makes it more forceful, more formidable, and for a brief moment she is enthralled by it. It kills Landon instantly, has his body staggering back with the momentum.

The cannon booms, Massie uses that to dislodge Skye, and the Capitolites around her roar their approval. They like both of the things they see: death and their Victor getting the upper hand.

When the camera pulls away enough for Massie to see the carnage, she gasps, wishing she hadn't, and tries to grab for the glass of water on the table between her and Merri-Lee.

Her hand is shaking too badly for her to grasp it, so she doesn't, curling into herself instead. Now she knows what Landon looks like dead, and that can create yet another mental image she will never be able to escape.

The trident comes to a stop, several feet away, slowing as it bounces off tree trunks. In the other, opposite direction, Landon's head rolls. It's not a clean beheading—it was most likely not Derrick's intention—and bone juts out of Landon's shredded neck, cracked and splintered. Blood drip, drip, drips.

A big number two makes itself at home in the top right-hand corner of the screen, and the footage stops on Landon's head, and his ruined neck, and Ripple's body, bleeding out, and Kemp, just standing there—

This is one of the Capitol's favorite moments. Their second favorite kill.

Massie is honestly afraid she's going to vomit all over her shoes, so she is swallowing and breathing, breathing and swallowing, and even though this ruins her, she can't help but agree with the Capitol.

This is one of the best moments of the Games, if not _the_ best moment. It has all the right components: a hero, a twelve year old, a death, a revenge.

Massie has no right to be sitting on this stage. He does.

She should be dead.

And she wants to be, after she sees what happens next.

See, she _knows_ he doesn't die here, remembers yelling at him and kissing him and killing with him, but that doesn't stop her from shrieking. That doesn't stop her from failing President Myner's test.

But there is something about Derrick from District Four that unravels her—in both good and bad ways.

The audience murmurs around her. She can't tell if they like her reaction or not, can't tell if it's beneficial to them, can't tell can't tell _can't tell_ —

She _can_ tell how good Kemp is with a sword as he thrusts it into the flesh of Derrick's leg. The boy makes no sound that he's been injured, just grits his teeth, and Massie remembers the gift, the note, the medicine, the bleeding, the risk of injection. She remembers the way she broke down, afraid for the first time of what it meant to win the Hunger Games.

She was right to be afraid.

Derrick rips the sword out of his leg and does not bother making the killing blow even though he holds all the power there. That infuriates her. He should have stabbed Kemp right through the heart, not crushed his toes beneath the pommel!

Kemp makes a scene, tries to grab Derrick by the neck, but misses as Derrick ducks. The sword flashes in the moonlight. Derrick heaves himself up, almost as if he wasn't just stabbed in the leg, and throws himself over Landon's decapitated body. His fingers close around his trident, but Kemp is right behind him, and he's raising his sword again, and Massie feels herself panic panic _panic_ even though she knows what happens and she probably shouldn't act this way if she wants to live another day.

There is something in Kemp's eyes that scares her, that makes her think he'll be able to kill her now despite his current lack of life.

 _Oh, I can, Massie Block_ , Kemp coos. _Number twenty-six!_

A brick falls. Another follows suit, dislodged thanks to the first one.

 _Twenty-seven now._

Massie watches Kemp realize he can kill Derrick, sees it dawn on his face, and he's about to do it too, and he would have, if it weren't for the cannon.

They both stop.

They both look towards where she was dragged off to.

There is nothing but silence.

Derrick breathes her name like her loss is unmanageable to him and Kemp shouts it like she's his favorite toy and she's now broken beyond repair.

In that split second, Derrick grabs the shaft of his trident, swings it at Kemp, and slices the front of his shirt. He takes off running.

Kemp seethes, yelling, blood dripping from the slashes on his chest, but ultimately decides to let Derrick go.

Massie, onstage, has managed to compose herself enough to grab a napkin and dab at her ruined lip.

 **...**

 _Thirty_ , Kemp whispers tauntingly, as Merri-Lee asks a question.

Massie answers it, but doesn't know what she said. She is too busy watching her wall collapse, all her willpower and strength crumbling to the ground in a heap.

Kemp's parting words to her, breathed around her subconscious, pressed to her brain like a kiss: _You never really learned how to play the game._

 **...**

Cam is not in the wings anymore. Massie tries to backtrack and give the Capitol the answers they want to hear, but she can't remember what those are. Is she supposed to care? Is she supposed to be indifferent? Is she a killing machine? Did she do all that just to survive? What is her angle? What is her angle? What is her—

 _Keep playing this angle, the Capitol loves it_.

She swallows a sob.

 **...**

The Kemp in her head succeeds in his goal to ruin her life—or she succeeds in her own goal to ruin her life—but it matters little who or how or why she got here. They are about to show her the last few days in that arena, and Massie…

Massie doesn't remember any of them, and maybe she should learn, should find out what happened that was so terrible she's blacked it out, but she sees the edges of a house on the sea, can smell eggs, over easy, and knows there is coffee with not too much sugar waiting for her.

 **...**

"You can't stay here."

"Why not? Do you not want me here?"

"Of course I do, but if you're here, you're not there, and you're not safe."

"But you're here, so I'd rather stay."

"No. _Go_."

 **...**

The fog recedes as she blinks once, twice, and then a third time for good measure. In her short absence—or has it been long?—Merri-Lee has pumped the crowd up for what she calls the _absolute best_ moment of the Games, bar none. "It might," the redheaded host suggests coyly, "be the best moment of _any_ Games."

Wrong, since the best moment of _any_ Games has been voted on unanimously, every year, as the moment when William Block, the Beheader, the _King_ , beheaded his last two tributes with one strong slash of his axe. They'd been tied together, back to back, and he just swung, and— _ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the Fiftieth Annual Hunger Games!_

Still, the Capitolites cheer and scream themselves hoarse, agreeing. They love nonsensical violence, and they are about to see what really happens when someone becomes undone.

Massie is two parts horrified, one part curious, as the final Cornucopia scene unfolds before them all.

There Kemp is, lounging atop the horn.

There she is, moseying in, as if she hadn't had several life crises before this.

There Andy is, outrunning a roaring wave.

There Derrick is, mountain lion mutt on his heels, hissing for blood.

Kemp gives his grand speech, passionate about how stupid he thinks she is.

Kemp threatens her life in front of Derrick, and Derrick says those hurtful words that still, even though she knows better, sting as she sits in this fluffy armchair.

Kemp strangles her.

Derrick doesn't do anything, but what she sees now she could not then: He is stricken, blood leaving his face so swiftly it's like he is dying with her. But he knows better to move until he has a plan, and he doesn't have a good enough shot at Kemp to throw his trident. He may hit her. She sees that Andy'd be able to shoot him with a dart, but he has no ties to Massie and doesn't care if she dies.

So Derrick doesn't do anything, but he wants to, and Andy doesn't do anything, which is normal, and Massie is in her head, which leaves her limp in Kemp's hold.

It's interesting to watch someone flit through their subconscious, even if it is herself. It is like she just _left_ , slipping through a door and escaping to a different room. She is there, but she's not, and it's so pronounced, so obvious, that Massie understands now why Cam had been so insistent she stay present, stay _normal_. There's no way she can explain that away—and she's already slipped into her mind during this interview.

But just like she's suddenly come back to answer a question, her hand is moving, jerking, really, into her pocket. That is where she keeps her knives oh my god that is where she _keeps her knives_ —

And then…

She is stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing.

Kemp tries to say her name, tries to manipulate her into stopping, even though she's not there, can't he see, can't he tell this is not the girl he knew at seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen?

Derrick looks as terrified as she feels, but at least he is moving towards her whereas Andy is running away.

Each time the blade enters Kemp's body, she screams. She does not scream in the arena, no. In the arena, she is silent, calculating, devoid of all emotion. On this stage is where she screams. Thirty six times. She starts when the knife pierces skin, holds it for as long as it stays in him, and stops when it is removed. Then she starts all over again.

Somewhere between twenty and twenty-three, Kemp's cannon goes off.

She does not hear it. The only reason she hears it over her screaming is because they made the audio of this moment louder than she is.

The sound of the cannon startles her so badly she claps her hands over her ears.

She does not stop the stabbing, not until Derrick pulls her away, and then she stabs him, and he hits her over the head.

When Massie asks if Derrick loves her, she's shaking so violently there is no hiding it. When he says _yes_ , she's digging her nails into her thighs just to feel something other than the emotional turmoil surging through her core. When she says, "I love you too," she is sobbing, cries that wrack her body hard enough to make herself sick. When he asks _really_ , she lays her chest flat against her legs, knees knocking against her face, and vomits, right there on the stage during the recap of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games. When she says _really_ back, and his face lights up, and he's apologizing for everything that happened, she knows that despite being a Victor, she's lost.

 **...**

"No!" Derrick yells.

"Why _no_?" Massie shoots back, clenching her hands into fists. "Is it so crazy that I want to stay here? That I want to stay with you?"

He grits his teeth, takes a step forward, takes a step back. Runs a hand through his hair so roughly he may have given himself a headache. "No, it's not—you don't _belong_ here, Massie! Four is… Four is _my_ home, like One is yours. I don't belong there, either, and you know it."

"That's why I agreed to come here," she reminds him. They've had this argument time and again. "What could be so bad about Four?"

"But… but that's the thing," Derrick insists. "You don't like boats, you hate spending all day on the beach, and the market is too lackluster for your tastes." He points at her aggressively. "Don't even. You said it yourself. To my _face_."

"Okay," Massie says, and she wants to continue with _that's not true_ , but it isn't a lie, is it? Boats make her queasy, and she hates that she still has sand in her ears and between her toes, and come _on_ , does she need more than one necklace made of seashells? "But if you can't live in One, and I can't live here, what are we supposed to do? Move to _Six_?" The disgust in her tone is striking and even she is a little taken aback by it.

"Massie, _baby_." Derrick wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulling her flush against him. He smells like he always does, and she only likes the sea and the brine and sun if it's on him, not on her, or at the waterfront. Only him. He makes it all a little better, a little more personal. "Look, I… I—I think you should go back."

That's not how this argument normally ends. Normally he laughs that she suggests Six, because that's the last place they should be, and kisses her temple. She'll make it up to him later, upstairs in their shared room, and the next day she'll go back to the market and buy several more of those handmade necklaces and bracelets because the craftsmanship really is lovely, isn't it?

So she is rightfully confused. "Back?" she repeats, pulling her head away to peer up at him quizzically. "Back to One?"

"No." Derrick frowns. "Back to the Capitol."

" _The Capitol_?" She doesn't… she wouldn't… why would she go there? Why would she go _back_?

"You can't keep hiding from them," he tells her gently. "It's not good for you. You're not… you're not yourself when you hide. I want you, but I want all of you, not just the part you give me."

"I'm not following."

He affixes his most serious stare upon her face, and Massie swallows uncomfortably, mind screaming _no no no abort abort_. She fists his shirt in her hands, holds tight.

"Yes, you are," he replies. "I see it in your eyes. You can't be here. You don't belong here. Go _back_ , Massie."

"Even if I knew what you were saying to me," she snaps, "I would not go back there. I don't live there. I live in One. I have no reason to go _back_ to a place I've never been. You're not making any sense."

"But I _am_. I am the only thing that makes sense to you." His tone changes and he grabs her cheeks in his hands, forcing her to look at him. "Please," he begs. "Please listen to me. Go back. Pull yourself out of it, stop being so afraid of yourself, and _go back_. You need to remember what they did to you, what they stole from you."

Something clicks in her head but she pushes it back. Not now.

" _Stop that_ ," Derrick whispers furiously. "Don't fight it. Welcome it."

"I don't want to," she says, small.

" _Please_ ," he says again. "Please. Terrible things are going to happen—terrible things are already happening—you know that now, so you can't hide here. I can't do this without you. I _won't_ do this without you."

Massie blinks, vision fuzzy with images. She sees Derrick now, all comfy-casual and pleading, and she sees Merri-Lee Marvil, the host of a variety of Capitol shows, but mainly the main commentator of the Hunger Games, and she sees Derrick again, but different. Tired, bloody, covered in grime, holding out his palm, waiting. That second Derrick looks at her like the first one does, their faces combining, their outfits overlapping, and he says, "I can't do it without you."

Her face is still wet and her shoes are covered in sick when she lifts her head again. Merri-Lee is pretending this is all fine and normal (it's not) and there are doctors headed towards her with a syringe she does not like (they will be in trouble later) and the people in the first two rows are exclaiming and gossiping over how crazy and unbalanced she is and how much they love it. How much they love the Hunger Games, what fun and great entertainment!

She thinks she may throw up again because her pain is amusing to them, and the most traumatic and life-changing weeks of her life were fun for them to watch but hard for her to endure. She stares at one, a man with pale blue skin and dark hair curling at his ears. He catches her gaze, smirks, and sends her a wink.

Yep, she's going to vomit.

But before she does that, and before the doctors can sedate her enough to calm her for the remainder of the recap—no, it is not done—Massie remembers everything they are going to make her watch in very quick succession.

She remembers searching for Andy, who Derrick swiftly kills, a cheap, easy shot, his trident through his neck. There was no enjoyment there.

She remembers the mutts, lions like the one that chased Derrick earlier, breaking up their argument and forcing them apart.

She remembers Derrick not being close enough to his trident and getting teeth in his leg, the same leg he was always getting injured on.

She remembers one of them slicing open her abdomen with their claws, razor sharp and made of glass.

She remembers fighting through it, sending knife after knife at the lions that just _kept on appearing_ , killing them before they could get near Derrick.

She remembers him grabbing her by the waist.

She remembers ignoring the stinging pain, telling him over and over _it's just a superficial wound, nothing serious, I am fine_.

She remembers shoving her hand in her pocket, producing a handful of nightlock berries, and she remembers him saying _I can't do it without you_ , and she remembers knowing that means life after the arena when she says _I_ ** _won't_ **_do it without you_.

She remembers dropping half the berries in his waiting palm.

She remembers not even panicking as she brings them to her mouth, eyes wide on him, watching his every move.

She remembers him slapping her back, and she remembers him spitting the berries out, and she remembers Vincent, the Head Gamemaker, shouting, voice shaking, _ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Victors of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games, Massie Block, District One, and Derrick Harrington, District Four!_

 **...**

The stunt she pulled.

 _This_ is the stunt she pulled.

President Myner doesn't even bother crowning her when it's all over. He tells them all she will get her reward at his party during her Victory Tour when she is feeling better, and perhaps they should have let her recover more before interviewing her, she only just woke up yesterday, but don't worry, she'll be good as new in no time, and lets the doctors drag her away.

She meets his gaze by accident as she is jostled out of her chair and back to the hospital. When she sees the malice, the hatred, the _contempt_ in his eyes, she wonders if she'll even make it to her Victory Tour in the first place, and if she does, what state she'll be in when she gets there.


	6. Part Six: Alter

**_A little earlier than usual today, because I have plans later. Happy early Valentines Day!_**

 ** _Please note that if you get confused as you read this, that is the point. I'm trying to live in Massie's head right now and she's not too sure what's going on, what's real and what's not. You'll see more as you go through this chapter._**

 ** _I will be on vacation next Wednesday, so expect an update a little later than usual. Maybe Thursday, but if not, most definitely Friday._**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Six_

* * *

 **al·ter |** **ˈ** **ôltər  
** verb  
 _change or cause to change in character or composition, typically in a comparatively small but significant way  
_ synonyms: adjust, change, adapt, amend, improve, modify, reform, reshape, refashion, remake

* * *

"Cole, _please_ ," she hears from the hall outside. Her father sounds desperate, so unlike him, that her interest is immediately taken away from the odd, woodsy decor of this office. Everything has a feel of the forest, layers of wood and brick balancing each other out. There is even a stuffed deer head above the desk, and several hunting rifles of various shapes and sizes hung to the walls.

It makes sense for President Myner to enjoy hunting if his way of bringing peace to the country is through the Hunger Games.

The doorknob turns as Myner replies, "I am disappointed, but for you, my old friend, I will try one last time."

When the two men enter the room, Massie's breath is knocked straight out of her.

Completely different sizes, Cole Myner and William Block are still formidable when put together. She's seen them before—in her house, on TV, on the stage she was just on—but right now she is aware of how serious the situation is. William is not one to worry, yet the furrow in his brow speaks volumes. Myner merely casts his gaze over her, calculating and dismissing.

She is suddenly very aware that she is paralyzed, that she has no doubt made a mockery of her makeup, that she is covered in her own vomit. What a way to greet someone, to greet _important_ someones, even if she has known them her whole life.

"A pity," Myner says to William, "she used to be so pretty."

"She cleans up well," her father responds quickly. "You just need to give her the chance." It is deeper than her appearance, this statement; that much is obvious.

Massie's eyes track them as they go to sit: Myner across from her, at the desk, and William, in a chair equidistant to the both of them. He does not pick one or the other.

Her father's eyes bore into her, blue depths telling her more than words allow. _Do what he asks of you._

She blinks in understanding, even as the sounds of this world fade into the other one in her head. There is something else in that gaze that frightens her though she is not sure what it is. It is enough to pull her away from here, having never seen her father look so… defeated? worried? _haunted?_ Not even in his Games, as he killed for his life had he looked as he did now, so she fights against the crashing waves, the sight of the sandy beach, and steels herself here, in the Capitol. She feels it is important to remain aware even though she is tired, even though she wants to take a break.

"My dear," Myner begins softly, clasping his hands in front of him, "my _superstar_ … what you have done has shaken the very foundations of our country."

This upsets her, because she doesn't know, didn't know, and she can't say anything. He knows this. She tries anyway.

"Do not strain yourself," he tells her. "It will not work. Just listen. What you did in that arena—I expected better of you. No, that's not right." He looses a breath, looking distressed when she knows he is anything but. It is all an act. Is everything he does an act? "You were truly magnificent. Seven total kills, the highest of all this particular year, and four more than the boy we had slated to win. It is incredible what ego can do to a person, what _determination_ and _belief_ can do to a person."

This is a jab, she thinks, but she isn't sure. The words he says do not sound as awful as she interprets them. They are explanatory. They are nice. They are vindictive. They are threatening. He is praising her yet cutting her down all at once.

William says, strained, "It was magnificent, honey."

Massie feels slimy having them congratulate her like this for killing innocent children. The faces of the dead flash before her eyes. Even if some of them were trying to murder her, it still doesn't feel right. Doesn't sit well. Why didn't anyone tell her this? Why did they go on and on about glory and riches and fame, but not spend even a second on the crushing guilt that is sinking in her stomach?

Claire and Miles from Twelve.

The girl from Seven—Becca, they said her name was.

Skye from Two, who was going to kill her after she carved her face up.

The girl from Six, who she killed for fun because Derrick convinced her to. She didn't pay attention to her name during the recap.

Carrie from Five, who was going to shoot her in the face with a rock at too close a distance.

Kemp from One, her district partner, her best friend—the boy that loved her, hated her, competed with her; the boy who grabbed her around the throat and _squeezed_.

Seven cannons for seven kills of seven people.

Seven people with lives and dreams and goals and families to go back to. Seven people she took from this world so she could, what, sit here and be reprimanded?

She sees them all so clearly, every last facial expression, every last word—all in Myner's face, slipping and sliding to replace the green eyes sparkling back at her, _mocking_ her.

Can she swallow down her vomit if she's paralyzed like this or will it just come back up regardless of her sheer will to keep it down?

"You did your part well," Myner continues on, letting them sit in silence while she thinks about what she's done. She is glad her body cannot betray her this time. "An astounding showing from a volunteer. It would have been everything I wanted and more, had it not been for the end." He fixes her with a most stunning glare. "We could have written it off as PTSD, or a snap in your brain—two very common diagnoses for Victors… if you had not decided to change the story."

 _I didn't mean to_ , she wants to scream. _I didn't mean to! I just didn't want to be alone._

Surely he can understand that.

"Have you heard of the rebellion, my dear?" Myner asks. "People grow restless of my rule. They do not like the Games, as beneficial as they are, and they believe me to be a tyrant. I assure you they are wrong and I have done my best to stamp them out. As your father's daughter, I know you have no allegiance with these people. The Blocks are loyal to their core. You have always wanted to volunteer, always wanted to be like your parents."

He isn't wrong. Massie cannot stomach her younger self, even the self she was a month ago. How could she have _wanted_ this? What did she expect to happen if she won? Had she ever thought she'd win? Had she always resigned herself to losing, no matter who went in there with her? Maybe losing, and subsequently dying, would be better than this.

The panic surging through her bloodstream, making its way to her chest, increases in speed and ferocity when the man before her speaks again. It sinks its claws into her heart, squeezes her lungs, makes it hard to breathe, but she refuses to show that, breathing steadily through her nose until it passes.

"So tell me, Massie Block," Myner says softly, silkily, angrily, " _why_ did you do it?"

 _I didn't mean to_ , she thinks again, because it's the only thing she can think. The only thing that breaks through the noise. _I didn't mean to! I just didn't want to be alone._

Myner knows she can't answer him. Can't defend herself. A slow smile makes his way across his mouth. She hates it.

"You can't just ask her questions," her father snaps. "She has no way of answering."

"She needed to be sedated, Will," Myner replies, annoyed. "Who knows what she would have done? She is not well."

"If you just postponed this talk until it wore off and allowed her to answer—"

Myner raises a hand and William trails off. "I am a very busy man who does _not_ need to be babysitting a crazy teenage Victor. I should just kill her off"—William stiffens here—"but after we went through the pains of healing her, and interviewing her, after the crowds have already seen her, have already decided to love her… I do not see the point, and I truly _hate_ nonsensical killing." If Massie could scoff, she would. "Let me spell it out for you, dear: Your affection towards that Harrington boy has sent a spark through the country. The fact that two volunteers from Career districts were willing to die together instead of play the game, when the game is _so_ easy for them… it has caused whispers. I am here to ensure they stop. We already know what to do with the boy."

 _We_?

Massie looks at her father, who swallows, staring at the ground, mouth pressed into a grim line. So he is involved in this. He is _always_ involved in this, even if he is not an actual member of the government. He is Myner's go-to guy when things get hard, always answering when he calls. At one point her mother snarled at him that he was the Capitol's lapdog, and wouldn't he ever tire of it?

Appears not.

"He cares for you a great deal, so convincing him to do something to save you will not be difficult." Myner looks irritated at the thought of someone doing something for someone else. "It is a shame it will wreck his reputation, but we need to put a nip in this before it gets out of hand. They will see what I want them to see. As for you…" He cocks his head, looks interested. His gaze rakes over her, making her feel naked despite the dress protecting her from that.

"No," William says at once.

Myner smiles. It makes Massie's skin crawl. "No?"

"Surely you would not… not to Massie," William stammers, fragments of sentences she does not understand. He clears his throat. "To do the same to her as him would be too glaringly obvious that it is your doing. You claim she is mad, yes? Find a way to fix her brain… _alter_ the memories she has that are causing her distress." He pauses, flicks a look towards Myner, then Massie. "The doctors here are like none other. They will be able to do what those in One cannot."

"Fix her brain," muses Myner. "Alter…" He pretends to consider it. "Oh, yes," he says with an air of finality. "We will do just that. Don't you worry, dear, we will squash all rumor of rebellion, clear your name of any treason, and patch you right up. You want to go back to normal, right, like you were before the Games?"

Massie blinks at him, lost in translation, and tries to answer again. She can't move her mouth even an inch, but she wants to know where Cam is, where Derrick is, why she needs to be fixed, why they want her to go back to _before_. Before-Massie was an entitled brat.

Myner takes her blink as agreement and claps his hands together once. "Excellent," he says. "I expect results in the next month, and I expect her to be better in three." He is talking to someone behind Massie, and when a cold hand presses down on her shoulder, she realizes a doctor has been here this whole time, if the lab coat is anything to go by. She doesn't like the feel of his skin against hers. "If those things do not happen, there will be consequences."

His gaze shifts from the doctor to her to William and Massie knows all three of their lives count on her.

She forces herself to do something, anything, and croaks, "I will not let you down, sir."

Myner merely drawls, "No need to call your godfather _sir_ , dear." He waves a hand. "Now go. I have things to discuss with William. Do not come to me unless she does not cooperate."

 **...**

The first thing she does when the sedative wears off is ask, in this order, for:

1\. Cam

2\. Derrick

3\. Her father

4\. (At this rate, she'll even talk to) Fawn

She gets no one but a few technicians, who wheel a screen into her room, attach a few wires to a computer, and make her watch Derrick's recap.

She doesn't notice the nurses who file in with clipboards and notebooks, scribbling her every reaction, as she stares at the lines of his face, the gold in his hair, the popping of freckles along the apples of his cheeks. She cries when he does, watching Ripple die, watching her face get ripped apart, and she wishes she could hold him, these silent tears dripping down his face. Merri-Lee Marvil coos at him, wipes at his eyes, and he smiles softly at her, like it's everything he's ever wanted.

Massie wants to rip that lady's face off. Wants to stab her in the eye for looking at him like she is, like he is a piece of meat to be bought. It's how they are all looking at him, she realizes, glancing at the crowd; it's how that one man looked at _her_ , even as she made a fool of herself in front of thousands.

She does not realize she spends the next three hours crying. She hardly listens, just watches him, and for the hundredth time, she wonders where he is, and why she can't see him—even though she _knows_ why—and when it ends and they wheel it away without another word, Massie is already gone, succumbing to a world where she wins the Hunger Games and doesn't have to leave him.

There, they never let go of each other's hands, and they scour the beach of interesting shells for the kids his brother has, and they find different ways to make fish so maybe he will be interested in eating it again. Their kisses are salty, their toes are sandy, and she never has to go to the Capitol or District One ever again, content to warm herself up like a cat by the window, curled up in him.

 **...**

The thing about these worlds…

Something always shatters them.

 **...**

It is the weight in her hand that shatters it this time. It's a dream, though, so maybe she isn't half as insane as they make her out to be, but it still aches as she slowly wakes, the brightly lit kitchen fading into the darkness of this hospital room she is stuffed in while they "alter her bad memories" or whatever.

Cam is at the foot of her bed, and a whole day has passed, but she doesn't remember falling asleep after the Recap. But she must've: it is dark, and the clock reads late, and Cam… Cam looks like he's been to hell and back. He is still in that too-sheer shirt and there are dark purple circles beneath his eyes. His hair is a mess, like hands have run through it, pulled at it, mussed it, and they probably have, because that's what Cam does when he's in the Capitol. He sees woman after woman, and stumbles onto the train and back to District One still smelling like their horrid perfumes, but he always smiles and laughs. He enjoys it.

He holds her hand, waiting for a sign that she is awake, that she is _there_ , and when she does not move, merely blinks at him like he is not there, and closes her eyes again, he sighs. Sags. Rests his forehead against her forearm. He is clammy against her skin. She flutters her eyes open again, peering out from under her lashes, and takes in the long line of red scratches down his back, peeking from the top of his shirt.

"I'm sorry. I was going to warn you, but—I'm a coward, I guess."

She doesn't understand.

She doesn't understand a lot these days.

Like how someone can send kids into that arena and ask them to slaughter each other for fun, for entertainment, for the sake of a years-dead rebellion.

Like how a man does not understand that she was _scared_ in there, no matter how much training she's been through.

Like how her own father wouldn't stand up for her, only offered a suggestion he saw safer than the one her own _godfather_ , her president, was going to put forward.

Like how someone who always looks like they enjoy the Capitol so much can seem so _fucking_ sad to be there.

"Massie," he says, like she is going to answer, but she knows she shouldn't, even though she is wide awake and listening intently. This seems too personal for her to interfere with. "You need to do what they say. _Please_ do what they say. I know normally you do not like to listen to people, especially authority, but… if you don't… it's not that I'm worried about my own life—fuck my life—but I don't need you getting hurt. He doesn't understand basic human feeling—or he does, maybe, because that's why he hates it. I don't know." He sounds weird, like he's swallowing around something, like he's going to cry, and Massie doesn't like it. Cam doesn't do that; he makes fun of her when she shows any sort of weak emotion, even if it's just getting tired. "I know what they're going to do. Even if it doesn't work, pretend it does. I need you to live." A strangled breath. "He killed my brother, and you are the closest thing I have to a sister, and _I need you to live._ And if that is not enough, Derrick will need you to live; he won't be able to survive what they'll ask of him without you—whatever you is left. Do it for him if you won't do it for me, but just _do it_."

His speech has her startled even more silent than before, and by the time she has the tiniest inkling of what she wants to say, by the time her eyes have focused on something other than her utter misery, and his uncharacteristic melancholy, Cam is gone, leaving behind only his familiar scent and the warmth of his body against her side.

 **...**

She falls asleep shortly after, not sure if what she heard is real or not.

 **...**

Derrick is dressed in the outfit he did his Recap in, three weeks ago, all flowing shirt and white linen pants. He is tanner than he ought to be—the sun in the arena was fake—and his smile is too white, and his freckles too pronounced, and there is gold in his hair, and green in his eyes. He is hers, but he is not. They are molding him into something _they_ want.

She cares very little, though, because he is _here_.

He is here, and his hands are warm, and his face is so sincere, and his eyes— _shit_ , his eyes—it's everything she saw on that screen when she was crying, asking him if he loved her, and he said yes, and she said… Seeing the way his whole face lit up, even sitting across from Merri-Lee, it broke her heart, and the look on his face—it's all right here—and it's all too much.

She grabs his face and she kisses him. This is all she has left. Just this—and then… and then she'll have nothing. They'll be pulled apart, and she can't. _She can't_.

She wishes she could give him more, but when he presses against her, mouth sliding over hers, hands gripping her hips, she finds all she can do is cry. Wracking sobs she cannot control, even with him in her arms, right _there_ , and he stops immediately, which is fine, because no one wants to kiss a crying girl but what is not fine, not at all, is the way he seems to push back, push away, keeping her at arm's length.

It makes her cry more.

How can she possibly go from him twenty-four seven, always next to her, always constant to him twenty-four never? How is it fair? How does it work? Why do they call her a winner but she feels like she's lost?

"I'm sorry," he whispers hurriedly.

"No." She shakes her head, finds it makes her dizzy and stops. "No, it's not you, it's just—the Recap… I didn't… I wasn't…" She stops because no words come to her. No words make sense of the jumble in her mind.

There is a clock on the wall behind him. Its ticking and tocking is too loud, too distracting. The arms move faster than she is used to. Do clocks move that fast? No. They can't. Time is slow.

"Hey," Derrick says. "I didn't mean… You don't have to—I just… _I miss you_."

The minute hand jumps five minutes, then ten. Terror claws at her insides, rips them to pieces, puts her heart in a vice grip.

Her hands do the same to Derrick and she blurts, not _I miss you too_ , but, "Please don't leave me."

He hesitates, eyes wide as he looks into hers, searching but never once judging, and then, with her locked on his face, he leans forward to kiss her forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."

The dread that replaces the blood in her veins is heavy. It dries out her mouth, makes her hands tremble, and she can only wrap herself around him, holding him as close to her as she can.

She is confusing him, she knows. She can feel it in the way he almost flinches when she presses her whole body against him. His heart matches hers in their rapid beating. She takes comfort in that.

He buries his face where her shoulder meets her neck. His skin is warm and his breath even. The scent of District Four, of salt and sea and warming your toes on the sand, is masked by wildflowers. It leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

He holds her and holds her and holds her as she watches and watches and watches the clock. The hands can't be moving that fast. They can't go backwards. They can't jump forward. But they do: they move move move. Fast slow fast slow. But no stopping. Time will not let her stay in this moment.

Derrick says something but she doesn't hear it even though she answers. They hold a whole conversation she is not aware of and not once does he break their hug.

It occurs to her that they have never hugged like this before.

The clock chimes when the arms move to their final resting place, Massie's final resting place. It is loud. Louder than the ticking. Louder than the cannons in the arena. It is definite.

It chimes again.

Again.

She holds on to him as the silence fills the room, and she feels him kiss her collarbone. He says _see you soon_ against her skin. She bites her tongue to keep herself from whimpering and nods back.

He may not be going anywhere, but she is, and she knows, clinging to him like this, that this goodbye—because it is goodbye, it is not see you later, it is _never_ see you later—is for good.

 **...**

A pinch has her body seizes up in pain, and a nurse with bright skin is pulling a needle out of her arm. The black and blue springs into place immediately, like it was waiting to be summoned. The nurse applies far too much pressure as she swipes a wipe over it. Massie blinks. Avoids hissing.

"Hello, Miss Block," a doctor says. "Are you there?"

She blinks. _Of course she's there_ , what the… but then she realizes maybe she's been in her head, because she does not remember it being morning, or anything after that horrible… dream? was it a dream? of Derrick—or anything at all, really. It is hard. Her head hurts, and she remembers the Recap.

"Yes," she answers, voice soft. Scratchy. "I'm sorry. I do not know where I went."

"No matter." Someone scribbles something on a pad. "I will be overseeing your treatment, but you will work most closely with Nurse Adele, who is right behind me to my left."

She is young, the nurse. Maybe in her early twenties, and she has this pretty reddish-blonde hair. She's tied it up in a knot at the top of her head. Adele does not look at Massie.

"Okay. What's your name?" she asks, looking back at the man.

He smiles at her, and it is not pleasant, or pretty, or nice. "That does not matter," he tells her. "What matters is you are unwell."

"I am?"

"Yes." He nods. Seems pleased at this outcome. "Tell me, Miss Block—how long have you been here?"

"I don't know," she answers. "A day, maybe?"

He does not stop smiling, even at this. It seems to have made him even happier, if that's possible. Is she right then? She's never been very good at time management.

"Adele," he orders.

The tiny nurse looks at her watch and announces, "Two days, four hours and thirty-two minutes."

"What," Massie says.

The doctor places a cold, somewhat slimy hand over hers. She remembers it from Myner's office. She still doesn't like the feel of it. "Don't worry, Miss Block. We'll have you good as new in no time."

Two days, four hours and thirty-two minutes.

She lost two days, four hours and thirty-two minutes.

Where did it go? Where had she been?

She remembers it quite clearly—departing from the Recap, paralyzed from sedative, sitting in Myner's office where she is certain he threatened her though that memory is remarkably fuzzy, walking with the peacekeepers out of the building, signing her name on documents almost blindly. She got in an elevator to the fifth floor, changed into this outfit in a tiny bathroom, and waited until these doctors came. And they came fairly quickly.

She looks at the clock. Her interview had started at eleven in the morning. She doesn't know how long it lasted but she does know she was led out at two, maybe three, in the afternoon. Or around then.

The clock says seven, almost eight in the morning… several days later, if what these people have to say is the truth.

Two days, four hours and thirty-two minutes.

Massie meets the doctor's piercing stare with wide eyes. Good as new. She wonders what that means. "Thank you," she says, pulling her manners out of thin air. "The Capitol is most gracious."

He takes that same hand of his and lifts hers, bringing his lips to her knuckles. She fights off the cringe, not liking the juxtaposition between his skin and his dry, dry mouth. Either he notices her discomfort or not, but it doesn't stop him from murmuring, quite silkily, "It is our pleasure, Miss Block. We love our Victors."

The warning bell ringing in the back of her mind sounds a lot like Kemp yelling _fuck_ at the top of his lungs.

 **...**

Adele comes in and out for the first three days, taking Massie's temperature and marking her weight and checking her blood pressure. She asks meaningless questions to which Massie provides meaningless answers. A lot of them border on her relationship with Derrick without explicitly mentioning him. Whenever Massie gets uncomfortable she lets her ghosts do the talking for her. She thinks she's perfected Landon's stupidity enough when Adele huffs loudly and takes away her lunch.

Not like it was _good_. What a shame. The horror.

She peeks at that dumb clipboard she is always carrying and reads amongst the cross outs and very detailed recounts of her breakdowns that she is _bipolar_. No, wait, that's crossed out too. She has dissociative identity disorder. No, wait.

No, wait.

No, wait.

At the very, very top, it says _emotional instability._ It is the only thing they can decide on apparently.

Massie snorts. It's not like she understands what any of these terms mean, but maybe if they survived the Hunger Games they would understand more clearly what is going on in her head.

That's a hard maybe, though. Massie survived the Hunger Games and doesn't know what is going on in her head.

On the fourth day, Adele asks Massie to describe Derrick to her. Massie does, paints him with her words like she is an artist with a brush on canvas, and in every line there is the kindness and generosity and love she's come to know. She talks about his relationship with Ripple and the trident and how she could probably fall into his eyes if given the chance.

Adele scribbles something new on her clipboard and Massie knows what it is without seeing it. She's heard them whisper how she is only coherent and attentive when they mention Derrick—by name or insinuation—and they always say the same thing. _Obsessive_.

On the fifth day, they talk about Kemp, and Massie sees him materialize at the foot of her bed. She spends an hour talking to him, not Adele. The nurse must notice this but Massie is stuck staring at her partner's face, his eyes, his grin. When she asks how it felt to know Kemp never liked her, only wanted to kill her, it comes out of his mouth, words she's replayed over and over ( _I can't wait to kill you_ ), Massie doesn't know what she says. Doesn't remember anything over the infuriated screech she lets out.

They bind her arms that day. They say it is because she tried to claw Adele's face off, but Massie doesn't know if that is true. Adele wasn't there. Kemp was.

On day six, she painstakingly recounts her ten years of training. Every injury, every failure, every accomplishment. She explains in excruciating detail how she met Kemp. She talks and talks and talks until her throat is dry and she has no more words.

On day seven, they ask her to go through her Games, moment by moment. Sometimes she doesn't remember correctly, sometimes she tells them she died at the end, not Kemp, or Andy. Sometimes she tells them at the Cornucopia Derrick didn't get the medicine he did and his leg's infection festered and he—she doesn't make it past then, throat tight with unshed tears. (They make fun of her here and she hates it.)

Every time, though, a ghost appears. Claire, when she talks about killing her. Landon's head, when she remembers Ripple. Skye, when she talks about her scars. They show her a mirror; they are gone now. She forgot. Andy, Olivia, Becca from Seven. Even ones she doesn't care for, like that pair from Six. Or was it Five?

She breaks out of her binds. They inject her with something, and they tie her back up, and they speak for her. They let the ghosts overwhelm her, but she can't yell or cry or defend herself against them when she can't move. The Games they tell her don't make sense. Why are they so awful? She remembers contentment at some point. Not this, this, this. They strip it down to what it is: atonement for the sins of her ancestors, a way to keep the districts in line so they do not make the same mistakes they did before. Murder, blood, anger. No contentment, no fleeting signs of happiness, no caring. No love.

She is confused and it fills her slowly and she is submerged in a pool of uncertainty. What is real? What is not? The Games are fun. The Games are right. The Games are this, and that, and do you understand, Massie?

No, she does not.

They are talking again. The ghosts. Adele. Other nurses. Massie thinks she sees that male doctor, but isn't sure. Her palms sweat, though, at the thought of him and the machine she is hooked up to beeps beeps beeps.

The hospital room fades away when they get to the part about Derrick's leg again. They are repeating they are repeating they are repeating.

All she hears is the wind, and bird calls, and Kemp hissing at her that he's bored, that she's his, and Skye cackling about her smile, and Landon going on and on about the first person he ever killed in Two.

Then she hears nothing.

With a gasp, the weight of the blankets on her lap, the sting of the needle in her arm, the cold of the room assaulting her at full force. Adele stands next to her, like always, and says, "Three hours, ten minutes."

Massie doesn't know what that means.

On day ten, they start her treatment.

 **...**

Bipolar.

Dissociative identity disorder.

Emotional instability.

Obsessive.

A danger to herself and others.

Violent.

Catatonic.

Hysterical.

It all comes down to one word, and that word is crazy, and crazy is what they decided Massie Block is. But Massie Block has been crazy her whole life, hasn't she, so what makes this any different?

(This kind of crazy is not the crazy they want. Not the kind of crazy they cheer for. This kind of crazy is sad, and sadness does not do well in the Capitol.)

"Fix you," they promise.

"Series of treatments to get your mind on straight," they say.

"Will get rid of the problem," they prescribe.

But _what_ is the problem?

 **...**

They show her pictures and footage. Pieces of interviews and moments from her Games are shakily projected on the wall across from her. There she is, there Kemp is, there Landon is, there Skye is, there Derrick is, there Ripple is.

"Ripple is twelve," Massie says. "Did you know?"

No answer.

"Ripple is twelve," she says again. "Ripple is dead."

This part of the treatment stops.

 **...**

Massie frowns, opens her mouth, shuts it as she hisses, a needle—a big needle, thick and sharp and large—piercing the skin of her right arm. She watches it blankly, swallowing the terror threatening to climb up her throat. It is pretending to be vomit and her mind can't differentiate it between this needle and the arrowhead that pierced her skin. She thinks her mouth is bleeding.

Her heart threatens to burst out of her chest. Golden liquid is injected into her body, making her want to move move move and then sit sit sit. She is unaware of her body, feels like she is hovering over it, next to it—never in it. She feels rather than does, her mouth opening, and she's not sure why, not sure what she plans to do with it. No words come out, just a strangled sound. Kind of like a cat dying.

"Trackerjacker venom," says Adele.

This is reason to panic. Why? She doesn't know.

"It will not kill you," Adele explains. She sounds exasperated. "It should curb the hallucinations."

Odd, because doesn't it _cause_ hallucinations?

It's not working. Or it is. Adele is turning into the mountain lion that attacked her at the end, teeth bared, claws out. She is going to kill her. Massie tugs against her constraints. Wants to cry. Can't.

Her father is in the corner now, holding his axe, covered in blood. He smiles at her but it's not a smile and he says, "Why did you have to do that to us?"

"Do what?" Massie asks. "I didn't do anything."

"You did. You ruined me. Ruined our family."

"How did I ruin—"

"You should have _died_ rather than do what you did. You should have done better!"

Massie gapes. Better? Done _better_? "I won!" she insists. "There's nothing better than winning!"

"There is winning the way you did, and then winning with _honor_." Her father spits the word and Massie physically cowers, afraid, as he steps forward. She's seen enough replays of his Games to know what this means.

"Dad, please—"

"You _ruined_ me," he says again. "It's all your fault."

"What is my fa—" she starts to ask, how can anything be her fault, but it doesn't manifest and it doesn't matter. Her father throws his axe at her and it hurts when it breaks her skin and her bone and shatters her chest cavity.

She screams when she looks down and it is not an axe sticking out of her, making her bleed bleed bleed like she knew Ripple did but rather a trident. When she raises her head again, she is not met with her father's blue eyes but cold brown ones that promise death.

 _You ruined me_.

She is screaming, shaking and trembling and clawing at her chest, wiping wiping wiping away the blood that covers her. Get it off get it off get it off _GET IT OFF_ why won't this trident come out of her chest why is it still lodged there it hurts it hurts it

 _HURTS_

"There's nothing there. Stop. There is nothing there."

She won't.

The binds around her dig into her wrists and now she is bleeding there to match where she is bleeding on her chest. There is so much blood and it hurts and what was that where was she who was that why did they kill her she's dead right dead dead dead—

Someone slaps her in the face.

She gasps, chokes, tries to breathe breathe breathe but throws up instead. It's all over her front, just like the blood, and hot tears slide down her cheeks until she is stuffy and itchy and uncomfortable.

Why did they let that person throw this at her? Why did they let him kill her? Isn't this a hospital? They are supposed to _save_ her!

They play the interviews again.

She recognizes those brown eyes, but they don't make sense. It does not match what was in her head. That boy is nice in his interview. He is funny. He is… he's very good looking.

"Who is that?" Adele asks.

The answer is pulled from Massie like it's part of her soul, but she's confused. "Derrick from District Four."

"Do you know him?"

"Yeah." She leans forward to get a better look. Her heart flutters when he smiles.

"How?"

"We were friends in the arena," Massie answers. "I trusted him. I trust him now." But that doesn't explain the real feeling swimming in her gut, she doesn't think. She does more than trust him, but that cannot be right. Can it?

In the corner of the room, where she had seen her father, the unnamed male doctor shakes his head. "Again," he orders.

Blood blossoms again all over her chest as they inject her with venom, and the boy, Derrick from Four, who she trusts, and something more than trusts, shoves that trident so deep into her chest cavity she feels all of her ribs splinter and break.

She is screaming again.

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

Massie shivers, amazed, enraptured, _attracted._

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

Massie shivers, amazed, enraptured.

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

Massie shivers, amazed.

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

Massie shivers.

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

 **...**

It is widely accepted that the synapse affects memory, so it only makes sense that Massie's falter, break, and splinter, if they can even do so. She imagines they do, even if she doesn't know the names of the things changing her brain. One second, she is thinking one thing, and the next, another, the arena she knows flipping upside down to be the arena she sees on screen, the arena she's been listening to from the nurses' mouths.

Somewhere, in the deepest part of her mind, she rebuilds her wall.

Somewhere else, through the pain, and the stories, and the flashing bits of footage, she starts to believe.

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

 **...**

Derrick throws a trident at the boy from Nine.

Massie drawls, all District One pompous and superior, "What a waste. That's not honorable."

Adele checks something off on her clipboard.

 **...**

On day four, Massie had described Derrick from Four with such love and care and consideration.

On day thirty, she gives the bare minimum. Blonde, tall, big. Pretentious. Annoying. Flirty. What a stupid angle to play.

 **...**

"Do you remember kissing him?"

She blanches. "Why would I kiss him?" Then, after careful consideration: "Oh, was I playing him?"

 **...**

The Games appear to her in fragmented pieces, like a memory she is so desperately trying to forget, or a film she is not all that interested in.

It is a combination of camera footage and her own recollection, combined with subtle injections of trackerjacker venom that provide conversations and actions that fill the blanks her brain cannot. Together, they tell a story. _Her_ story.

 **...**

Massie is in the in between of sleep and waking, where everything is hazy and it is hard to determine what is real and what is dream. She knows the hard, cold ground is real. She knows the tender look in Kemp's eyes is dream.

She knows the whoosh of a weapon breaking the skin of her shoulder is real.

Eyes still closed, Massie grits her teeth through the pain and swipes with her right hand, a tiny knife hidden between her fingers. Her assailant jumps back, but not enough for her to miss, and snaps, "So, you became stupid overnight?"

"Hello," she greets. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Yeah," Derrick from Four says, "fancy that."

He digs his trident deeper into her body. Massie shoves another knife into his leg.

This is where their alliance breaks.

 **...**

She is standing on the dais, waiting for the countdown to finish. It is so _slow._ She sees her boomerang in middle of the Cornucopia. She itches to get her hands on it.

 _Boom!_

Massie goes racing down the grassy knoll, stumbles into the golden horn, and latches the boomerang around her back. She grabs as many knives as she can fit between her fingers, takes a deep breath to fill her lungs back up, to prepare herself—

"MASSIE!"

There is a fear in Kemp's voice she's never heard and that scares her too and she turns to look for him, to find him, and the thing that he's afraid of. A tribute too close to her maybe? He always said she wasn't good at paying attention to her surroundings.

What she sees is not an enemy approaching her, but Derrick from Four wrapping his big hands around Kemp's neck and _twisting._ Kemp hardly has time to struggle.

His cannon is the first death of the day.

Derrick from Four drops him like a doll, slips blades in his pockets and throws a spear over his shoulder. He makes eye contact with Massie, who can't stop staring at Kemp's dead body, and smirks. It is a message. She is next.

 **...**

Massie wants to cry but she doesn't.

Knowing Kemp is dead makes her very core ache with this emptiness that cannot be replaced nor drained out of her. She replays his death over and over, neck snapped at the hands of Derrick from Four. It physically pains her: she vomits more than once.

 **...**

Why did she stay in an alliance with him after that? She loved Kemp. Loved him with every fiber of her being and he loved her back in whatever way he could. No matter what girls came along or what boys Massie teased, it was always the two of them at the end of the day.

She remembers how excited she'd been when the other mentors and the trainers picked her and Kemp to volunteer that year. She remembers the excitement dropping to sorrow, smiles turning to tears, when she realized what that really meant. One or both of them would die. No matter what way she spun it they would have to live without each other.

 **...**

She catches Derrick off guard when she kisses him. It is obvious in the tense shoulders beneath her hands. They relax, though, if only minutely, as her palms slide away and up, fingers threading through his hair.

He grunts, pulling her against him and angling his face so he can dominate the kiss, and she is not so awful as to pretend this is not nice, that he does not know what he is doing. It would be better if he didn't, less distracting, but…

It takes her a moment to gather her bearings, but gather them she does, and she lets her hands wander, feeling the hard muscle down his back, until her fingers slip through his belt loop. All her movements are deliberate, purposeful. She's learned more than just fighting at school, as all girls do. She's learned to use herself as a weapon.

And she does, until she can get her hand on the knife she dropped by his knee.

And she does, until she stabs him right in the side, making sure to _twist._

And she does this, just for fun—she kisses his nose tauntingly, kicks his trident away from him, and runs.

 **...**

Without Kemp, Derrick is the leader of their little pack, and he breaks their alliance as quickly as he makes it.

 **...**

He stabs Ripple so many times she is unrecognizable when the blood stops flowing.

 **...**

He throws his trident so hard at Landon the other boy's head splits from his neck.

 **...**

He suffocates Skye in her sleep, a knee to her windpipe.

 **...**

Their alliance lasts almost a week. Then he stabs her in the shoulder and she tears up his side. The wound should have slowly killed him but he gets a sponsorship gift that saves his life.

 **...**

Derrick throws his trident at Andy, pulls it out of his body, and throws it at Massie.

Massie gasps, the pain searing, the blood covering her front. She claws at herself to remove it, the pain, the weight.

He does it for her, smirking cruelly because he thinks he's won, but she has this bodysuit that cushions most blows, so she is not going to die as easily as Andy. She takes the knives she's got leftover, slips them between her fingers, and swipes.

Derrick gargles, startled, pressing his hands to his throat. Blood rushes through his fingers like rivulets, staining his tanned skin and darkening the front of his shirt. His eyes narrow into slits as he glares at her, stalking closer to her.

It seems the two of them are angry enough, insane enough, full of enough adrenaline that they are not dead yet, despite the loss of blood that makes them stagger. Makes them lightheaded.

Massie lifts her hand again, ready to strike.

Derrick reaches for his trident, but it slips from his slick grasp.

At the same time, they fall.

 **...**

The Head Gamemaker this year is a man named Vincent. He dresses in plain t-shirts and frayed jeans. He even goes as far as walking barefoot through the hovercraft. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, tries to rub the furrow out of his brow.

Massie coughs when she wakes, shooting up to find herself bound to her bed. Her middle is clumsily wrapped. Blood stains the gauze. It hurts to breathe, but she does, forcing herself to calm, so she does not take heavy, ragged breaths.

"Oh, good," Vincent says. "You're up."

Derrick snickers. "Took you long enough."

He is in his own bed, tied up like her, but he seems so casual. So at ease. It's infuriating. Massie snarls, "You _sliced up_ my _chest_."

"And you tried to slit my throat," he shoots back. "I still recovered faster than you."

"Oh, fuck you," Massie snaps. "I should've tried harder."

"You and me both."

" _Silence_ ," Vincent orders, and they fall in line, though it does not stop them from shooting glares in each other's direction. "It is very unprecedented, the two of you being here."

"Yeah," Massie decides to say, ignoring the Gamemaker's request, " _why_ are there two of us?"

"I was getting to that."

"Let the man _speak_ , Block," Derrick mocks.

Massie grits her teeth, wishing she were well enough to break these binds and _strangle him_. She falls silent, looking back towards Vincent, giving him her full attention.

Derrick chuckles.

"The Capitol is enamored with both of you," explains Vincent. "For different reasons, of course, but enamored nonetheless. We have never had so many expensive sponsorship gifts in one Game before, and not to two different tributes. It is… an interesting dynamic, to say the least. The president wishes to see what will come of it, so the two of you have been spared. Two Victors this year. Nothing the world has ever seen."

Her blood boils. Beside her, Derrick's laughter stops abruptly. She can feel the change in the atmosphere, knows he's just as pissed as she is. _Two Victors_. How _dare_ he take her glory. This is _rightfully_ hers, and now… now she has to share? Because stupid, vapid Capitolites liked the two of them too much? _Who the fuck cares_?

"They've fallen in love with both of you," he continues unnecessarily. Isn't that what enamored means? What an idiot. "The president wants nothing more than to please his people, as you know, and who would he be if he did not give them what they want?" The pause here is purposeful and Massie reads it like a carefully veiled threat. "What they want is both of you and both of you they shall have. We land in a few hours," he adds. "We'll fix you up better in the Capitol. Rest, and don't antagonize each other, alright?"

Massie has known President Myner her whole life, so who is she to question this decision? It must've been the right choice, though it pains her to admit it.

 **...**

"Why would anyone love _you_?" Derrick snarks at her. It's weak. He's used most of his energy up before, provoking her in front of Vincent.

She throws him a smug wink, eyes raking over the bandages around his neck. She loves it, but not as much as she loves the wheeze that follows his every breath. "I could ask you the same thing."

 **...**

Day fifty-eight—bored posture, eyes lidded and judgmental, voice nothing more than a drawl.

Around a mouthful of bread and stew, Massie asks, "Why have I been here so long?"

The doctors answer easily. "Just monitoring you. There were many complications with your chest. Internal bleeding. Broken bones. Didn't want to send you home until we were sure you were at one hundred percent."

That trident _was_ something else. She'll give Derrick from Four that.

"Well, I'm at one hundred and twenty now, it feels like," Massie provides. "May I go home?"

 **...**

On day fifty-nine, they watch her movements as she watches her Games and the interviews. She flinches and sneers at the male tribute from Four, laments that he'd gotten the same score as her ("It's the trident that gives him any redeeming qualities."), and rolls her eyes when he charms the crowd.

They ask him what she thinks of him.

"I hate him," she answers.

There is no hesitation.

There are no ghosts, no other worlds to hide in.

She has been two weeks free of her bindings, put here to ensure she did not break her ribs for the _fourth time_ from her incessant moving, and not one scratch was inflicted on herself or others.

Adele writes something down on her clipboard, shows Massie.

Massie smiles.

 **...**

 _CLEARED._

 **...**

Day sixty entails her release, a lot of papers to sign, and a reunion with her father.

William Block stands in the waiting room of the hospital, dressed in all black. The only color is in his eyes and they are blazing as he waits for her to finish up. But she's spent the past few months in a bed so her movements are slow but her chest is fully healed so she will not complain. It must hurt to get a trident there. It's a wonder she is even alive.

"Daddy," she greets.

"Massie." He inclines his head, always above affection and hugs and anything else. He doesn't even tell her he's proud of her for winning, but why would he? He bet it all on Kemp and Kemp didn't even last a day. It is embarrassing for him, so she lets it slide. "The train leaves in an hour. We have to hurry."

She nods and shuffles after him.

The people in the Capitol are obsessed with the two of them. A father-daughter Victor pair! They are so strong! So beautiful! Something to look up to!

Massie regards them the same way her father does. Indifferent. Holier than thou. She will appeal to them when her Victory Tour starts in a few months. For now, she is better than them. If she's honest, she always is.

It takes the better part of that hour to get to the station, and when she's lounged on a couch with a plate of strawberries to dip in chocolate, her father throws a tied up stack of letters at her.

Chocolate drips down her chin. "What are these?"

"Mail," William says. "You got one a day for the past month or so. Figured you'd like to read them."

"We're a few hours from home," Massie notes. "Why read them now?"

William kicks his feet up and turns the television on. "We're detouring to pick Cameron up from Two, so we have a few days. There's not much to do on these trains and there's no need to prepare for your tour just yet, so…reading material."

There is a glint in his eyes that reads like a challenge.

Massie arches a brow. She will read these later, while in bed. Not here. "What is Cam doing in Two?" Is it bad she hasn't thought about him in a while?

"What is expected of him," is William's short reply. His attention is captured by a replay of Hunger Games past.

One look at it tells Massie it is Dune Baxter's year. She watches with quiet, almost bored, interest, licking chocolate and strawberry juice from her fingers.

Dune barely escapes the bloodbath unscathed, having deviated from the Career alliance. Her father laments this. Massie thinks it's smart. She's always thought that. The Careers from One and Two are stupid and turn on each other first, leaving only one. Dune makes long, excruciating work of that one and then kills his district partner. When he cries, knee deep in blood and mud and guts, both Massie and her father sigh, "Pathetic."

William looks surprised, eying her. "It worked, then? Your time in the hospital?"

Massie nods. "No more internal bleeding," she replies. Why he's even asking is beyond her. Clearly if it didn't work she wouldn't be here.

"Good," he says. "How does it feel?"

This is a different question then one would expect. He is not asking how her chest feels. He is asking… "Terrible. I can't believe I am _sharing_ my victory. Why would President Myner do that?"

William relaxes, just a tad, but his eyes fall on the letters Massie has yet to open. "Oh, you know how your godfather works. Anything to confuse the masses. He loves to keep people second guessing."

"True." Massie wipes her hands on the hot towel a servant brings her. "Does this mean he will kill them all next year?" she wonders aloud. "Make them think one thing but remind them he is in control? It's what I would do. Should I even bother with the tribute?"

"That is a long way off," William notes. "Don't worry about it now. You can ask him about it when you see him next."

Massie hums, watches Dune Baxter get pulled out of the arena, and says, "I will."

 **...**

Later on, after a bath with lavender bubbles and purple orchids, Massie brushes her hair and settles in the plush bed at the center of her sleeping car. There are no windows here, which is nice, but she would like to feel the breeze on her cheeks and see the stars in the sky. Fortunately she is able to change the settings of her walls and ceiling. It is not the same but it will do.

Beneath the night sky, Massie unknots the stack of letters and reads the first one.

 _They won't let me in to see you because you're "unwell." That's outrageous because you are just fine to me and I think I deserve to be with you after everything we've been through. They say maybe tomorrow. Someone has to do the closing interview, and that someone is me, so they're going to drag me to Beauty Base Zero in a little under an hour. I figured I'd write you this before I forget what I wanted to tell you in the first place. Mainly before I lose my nerve._

 _You might not know this or maybe you did because I am not subtle at all but the second I saw you I had the biggest crush on you and the only way I knew how to handle it was to bother you. I know a month or so isn't that long to know anyone enough to claim they love them but you're different to me. You make sense where nothing else makes sense. I physically do not remember a time you were not in my life. It is like you ingrained yourself in all of my memories and I know nothing but you. I love you. I know this much is true because I've never known anything else as certainly as I know this. Even if you only said you loved me back because you were overwhelmed and scared and confused and full of grief that is okay. I wanted to ask what your plans are when this is all over. Where you see your future taking you._

 _I don't know if it is foolish of me to hope your future has me in it but I have to ask._

 _It's hard to put it into words because it seems outrageous that either of us would end up anywhere without the other. It is like you are such a part of me I don't know how I will manage to be whole without you. I don't even know how to say it._

 _Even if you do not love me like I want you to, I hope you are willing to try. Do you want to try? We can take it slow or fast or medium if you want. Whatever you want I will do. But let me be presumptuous when I say I feel like you do want what I want or else you wouldn't have made sure both of us came out of that arena alive, but I still need to ask._

 _Victors' houses are big and I am but one person, you know._

Is this a riddle?

What is this?

Massie squints at the words as if fixing her eyes will make it all make sense. She even brings the paper closer to her face like the answers will just appear if she presses her nose to it.

The writing is boyish, that much is certain, and slanted, and a little bit nervous as it gets closer to the bottom of the page. It seems that this was ripped from something else, and there was not enough room for all this person's thoughts, so they are smushed and hardly legible as they near the end.

She reads it again.

Unwell. With the quotation marks, she knows that does not mean _internal bleeding_ and _six broken ribs_ , but rather… _mentally unstable_. Unwell. She is not unwell. Has never been unwell.

It hits her when she gets to the fourth line on her third reread and she is embarrassed it took her this long to grasp it. Even if she hadn't, somehow this paper smells like him, and she hates it.

Her hand clenches, balling it up and throwing it across the room. What the _fuck_ is this? A joke? Is he _trying_ to make her hunt him down and kill him?

She is going to throttle him if she ever sees him again, and she will have to, won't she, when she goes on her Tour and ends up in his district? She'll have to… she'll have to— _gag_ —shake hands with him like she is happy to share her well-deserved victory with a stupid boy from a stupid place full of stupid beaches and stupid oceans. Well, she's not—happy, that is—and he will be lucky she doesn't try to stab him at the dinner.

And he will be lucky because she has impeccable manners. Murder at the dinner table is so passé.

She is so angry she cannot sleep. She doesn't bother opening the next envelope, content with glaring at the wad of paper in the corner, trying to wrap her head around it. What is he playing at?

More importantly, she realizes with a gasp—she's been out of commission, _healing_ for just about three months. In that time… what has he been saying about her? What kind of person has he made her out to be, just by word of mouth?

Massie throws herself off the bed and hurries to collect the letter, smoothing it out on her comforter, reading through it again and again to find some sort of hint. Something to explain what his motives are, what he is planning to do to her. Surely he is as upset as she is about this co-Victors nonsense. He'll want to have discredited her before she's even able to make a name for herself…

But all she sees is grossly endearing bashfulness and a story that does not add up.

Maybe that is it: he is going to confuse her so much she confuses their Games up. Make her out to be crazy—"unwell," like this letter reads. Make her seem more affected than him, making him the Victor to watch, letting her fade into obscurity, because no one likes _that_ kind of crazy winner.

She balls up the paper in her fist again. _Not a chance._

 **...**

What is his angle?

What is his angle?

What is his angle?

 **...**

 _Keep playing this angle, the Capitol loves it._

 **...**

What?

Where did she hear that?

Why does it confuse her so?

 **...**

Massie pries this first letter from her hands, smoothing it out before her after carefully considering soaking it in her sink until the words blur and it breaks into soaking wet pieces. She drops it to the floor instead, lets it flutter to the ground. She will shove this _in his face_ when she sees him next: choke him with it. Him and his stupid words that make no sense and have _no right_ being read by her eyes.

I love you, _my ass_.

Who does he think she is? Some simpering, insecure girl he can manipulate? Not all One girls are like that, and Massie Block sure as hell isn't one of them. That much is certain from her Games. He must know that. He's _seen_ what she can do. Who she can make herself be.

She slides her finger beneath the seal of the second letter, hoping the contents of this one will calm her down.

They don't.

She shrieks, spies the same slanted writing.

She does not bother reading it. Instead, she opens the third envelope, then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. On and on until she is surrounded by letters of varying lengths and thicknesses—all with the same slanted handwriting.

Who does Derrick Harrington think he is?

Gathering as many up as possible, Massie marches into the common area, where her father is still studiously watching old tapings of the Hunger Games, and drops them at the floor by his feet.

"What _is_ this?" she demands, voice shrill. "Why did you give these to me?"

William sighs, a breath of a sound, and takes his eyes off the television to look at her, uninterested. "What is _what_ , darling?"

 _Why is he always like this?_ she wonders angrily, frowning at him. So… so blasé, so bored with life, so… _over it_ , like any emotion besides this has been erased from him.

She ignores that, a problem for a different day, and picks up one of the letters. She shoves it in his face and says, "What are _these_ , Father? Is this some kind of a joke?"

William reads the words upon the page, and Massie thinks she sees his face paling, his eyes flickering with, with—what is that? Is that— _guilt_? _Sadness_? It's gone before she can decipher it, replaced by his typical mask, and he folds the paper crisply, handing it back to her.

Massie takes it instinctively, even though she doesn't want it.

"Perhaps," says her father. "You know how your godfather is."

"He would never—"

"He would," interrupts William. "Despite doing this for the people, he still has to make sure you do not have any… feelings, I would say, towards the boy from Four. You did kiss him, after all."

Massie rolls her eyes. "Yeah, and then I _stabbed him in the side_. I'd hardly call that romance."

William looks surprised, like he had earlier, when she says this. His gaze travels up to her face, searching. "Is that so?"

"Don't tell me you didn't watch it," Massie snaps. Typical of him to avoid the mandatory viewing of his _daughter's_ Hunger Games. "Are you kidding? What'd you do the whole time I was in there?"

He schools his face, fighting the ire that alights his blue eyes. "What I normally do," he replies.

"So whatever Cole asks of you, then." Massie scoffs. "I can't believe I thought… what an idiot I am."

"Clean up your trash, Massie!" William shouts as she storms off, a flurry of annoyance and anger.

"I don't want them!" Massie calls. "I don't care what Cole wants, or what games Four is playing. I will _not_ read them! Let the help get rid of them!"

 **...**

William drops his head back against the couch, scrubbing his face with his hands, and sighs from deep within his chest. He waits until he hears Massie slam both the bathroom door, done with washing her face again, and her bedroom door, ready to sleep (or toss restlessly until the sun rises), and gathers the letters at his feet.

He does not know what order in they were written or the best way they should be read, but he puts them in a neat pile and leaves them on the table.

This may be the daughter he had before she volunteered for the Hunger Games, but he knows somewhere in her there is a girl who will regret not reading these, and when she fights her way out, he does not want to be the one that stood in her way.

He knows too much about regret already to let that settle on his conscious, too.


	7. Part Seven: Letter

**_A day later than anticipated, but some things came up which made updating difficult. Back to the regular schedule next week, hopefully. If it helps-you'll see Derrick again in two chapters._**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Seven_

* * *

 **letter |** **ˈledər**  
noun  
 _a written, typed, or printed communication, especially one sent in an envelope by mail or messenger_  
synonyms: message, communication, note, line, missive, report, bulletin

* * *

The train ride from the Capitol to Two is excruciatingly boring. It cuts around One, around the sparkling skyscrapers and diamond mines, around the places Massie longs to see, and shuttles through vast, dense forest. Always in the distance gleams what can only be the ocean; she's never seen it before, but this feeling overcomes her as she watches the sunlight glitter against the surface. It's nostalgia, it is unbridled desire, it is wanting—there is no other way to describe it, even if it leaves Massie confused and off-kilter.

If she's honest, she's been confused and off-kilter for the past two days, ever since she got out of the hospital, ever since she got those letters.

A small part of her is aware that her body does not ache like it should after internal bleeding and broken ribs that kept her bedridden for almost three months, but whenever she tries to think about it too much her head hurts and she remembers the Capitol has the best medical staff in the country. In the _world_ , maybe, if there are other places out there.

She watches the scenery as the train chugs along, hoping to see the land around Two so they can turn the hell around, but she sees nothing but the ghost of the sea at the coast, miles and miles away.

It makes her stomach flip, so she leaves the window and takes a shower. She takes a lot of those: five to six times a day, Massie is standing under the hot spray of water, letting it roll down her body. She inspects her stomach, but there are no scars, no sign she was bleeding out there. She splays her fingers along her abdomen, searching, but there is nothing. Like there always has been.

She washes her hair.

And she washes her hair again.

And again.

And again.

And again—until the shampoo bottle is practically empty and her fingers are pruned and her scalp aches from her merciless massaging.

Even then, when she comes out, face and body a harsh shade of pink, hair drenched and smelling of jasmine, it doesn't look clean enough. It lies heavy on her shoulders, clinging to her back, and even as she stands there, gripping a towel, she feels fingers tugging at it, pulling at it, running through it. It feels gross and tangled, dirty dirty dirty, like she is still in that arena.

She can't help it. She drops her towel, forcing open drawers and cabinets until she finds a pair of scissors.

With a few quick snips, Massie's hair curls at her collarbone, the rest slapping to the ground at her feet. She feels lighter.

"Your hair," Massie's father notices as she enters the sitting car, rubbing moisturizer into the dry patches by the corners of her mouth. They ache. She doesn't know why. It's not like she's been doing a lot of smiling lately.

She doesn't bother him with an explanation, instead jutting her chin towards the small table by his feet. "Why are those not in the trash where they belong?" She surveys him, the way he's got one of those godforsaken letters gently between his fingers. "Why are you _reading_ them?"

William lets out a haughty breath. "There's nothing good on TV."

"Not even the reruns?"

"I've seen Alicia Rivera's year too many times to count," William replies. "I've never read something as… _interesting_ as these." He waves the paper in his hands. "You sure you don't want to look?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Massie snaps. She viciously rubs more moisturizer on her face, between her fingers, on her arms.

When she blinks, the lotion gleams, coating her skin like blood—sticky and warm. Panic surges through her, and she rubs rubs _rubs_ to make it go away—this can't be happening it can't _she's in a train car_ —but it doesn't. It stays. Red, and wet, and seeping into her pores.

She can feel her father watching her so she schools her face into one of indifference even though her heart is pounding pounding pounding and she slows the motions of her hands.

It is lotion, she reminds herself. Lotion, not blood.

Lotion.

Lotion.

Lotion.

She looks down. _Blood_.

 _No_ , she thinks. _Lotion._ It is sweet-smelling lotion, the same lotion she's been using for years. Lotion lotion lotion.

Her father's drawling voice distracts her: " _I punched Cam in the face because he wouldn't let me see you. I know he's your friend and your mentor but it was the last straw for me. No one will let me see you, not even him, and—_ "

"Dad," Massie warns.

" _If they think I can do this interview without you they are as stupid as they look. Everything about me is also everything about you but they claim you are too much of a danger to have visitors, let alone go on that stage—_ "

Massie claps her hands over her ears. She doesn't want to hear this. Doesn't want to fall victim to a plot that is destined to undo her. She won fair and square. It wasn't her decision to save both of them, it was Myner's, and he cannot test her like this! Derrick from Four is a monster, he's the worst, she has no feelings for him, she wants to kill him—

" _Separating us is wrong. Telling me that I have to wait until you're better is wrong. They don't know what they're doing with you. They don't know how to talk or act or treat you but I do. I do I do I do and they need to let me—_ "

"STOP IT!" Massie yells, pressing her hands tighter to her ears. It doesn't drown out the words she's already heard or the ones following, mocking her in her father's voice. " _Stop. It._ "

William does when the hysterical note of her voice reaches a frenzied pitch and he cocks his head to the side, like the predator he is. "Okay," he says after careful consideration, after analyzing her face like a chess board. "You know, though," he adds, "this is exactly the reason for these letters. To see if you'll react like this. This is exactly what he doesn't want."

"I'm not reacting like this because of _that_ ," Massie retorts. "If you'd watched my Games you'd know why I did what I did, but you didn't, so you don't get to tell me things like that. And you don't get to read these to me when I said I didn't want to hear it!"

"Right, I didn't watch them, Massie," her father intones, "and believe me, I don't want to do this any more than you do, but if these letters are here it is because Cole saw something in those Games that even you didn't. And if _he_ saw it then _everyone_ saw it." He turns his face away so she can only see his profile; he clenches his jaw at the stack before him. "You know what happens to symbols here."

Massie digs her nails into her palms so hard it breaks skin, and now there really _is_ blood all over her. Now she doesn't have to pretend she's not seeing things. "I am _not_ a symbol."

"Read the letters," orders William, kicking the table in front of him. "Read them over and over so you do not react like _this_ again. Do not bring dishonor to our family name because you are immature and angry."

She narrows her eyes at him, blood sticking to her fingertips. Why isn't he looking at her? _Look at me_.

He does, because she's said that out loud, but there is nothing in his gaze. He is the most infuriating thing she's ever met. "Yes?"

"I kissed him to confuse him," she feels the need to explain. "And then I stabbed him in the side."

William swallows, eyes scanning across her face. "Is that so," he replies slowly, almost as if he is not sure this is the truth. _It is_. "I imagine there is much discussion about why you did not try harder to kill him then. A side wound is easy to work through. Surely you knew he had a number of sponsors willing to spend millions to ensure his survival at that point."

It still burns her to her core that he did not watch her as closely as she would have liked. Did not pay attention to her to know her motives and intentions. Had he given up after Kemp's brutal death? Just—turned it on and went about his day, not bothering to watch her, his daughter?

"And where would the fun be, then?" Massie asks. "Andy was no real competition. Sparing Four then meant we'd have more entertainment later on, and didn't we? Didn't I give everyone what they wanted?" She snatches the letters from the table, allows them to crease and rip as she clutches them to her chest. "It is not _my_ fault there are two of us right now. I didn't make that call so can everyone stop thinking I did?"

"But it _is_ , Massie, it _is_ your fault!" William snaps back. "You couldn't kill the boy when you were seducing him and you couldn't kill him when he tried to kill you! You did not play the game and so now the game is playing you! See that you decide to move your pieces appropriately now."

He turns away from her again, a blatant dismissal.

She spins on her heel and exits the car, heading towards the bedrooms, and drops the letters on her bed.

The words of the top one—the one her father read to her, slow and menacing—glare up at her. She sighs angrily and swipes her hand across it, wishing she could rid the world of this stupid test.

As if she could ever have feelings for that guy.

She takes another shower, water burning her back. She stays in there for three hours, until her skin is pruned and her father is yelling at her to come to dinner.

 **...**

 _Watching Ripple_

 _Listening to you scream_

 _Jesus Christ_

 _I fucking cried. I cried. I think_

 _I think I'm still crying_

(There are water stains on the paper, clustering around these fragments of sentences he didn't finish writing. Pathetic. These are not from tears, they are from water droplets carefully poured to give off the illusion. Four would never cry over his twelve year old partner nor would he have any issues with Massie screaming.)

 _Myner wants to talk to me. He says he has a proposition for me. I don't know what that means, but it makes me nervous. It shouldn't though. Nothing should make me nervous anymore. I won. We won. There's nothing left to be scared of._

 _Doesn't mean I'm still not wary. It's good to be wary, I think._

 **...**

Cam stumbles onto the train and when he has dropped his bag off in his room and changed into something warmer than he was originally in, he takes Massie into his arms and does not let go. He squeezes too tight, like he is trying to burrow into her skin, and she does not like it.

She pinches him.

He doesn't even react, just whispers, "I knew you could do it."

Massie does it again. Struggles against him so he'll let go. He knows she's not big on the affection front. "Do what?" she snaps. " _Win_? Of course you knew. It's me." She huffs. "Thanks for coming to see me, by the way, really loved being _alone_ for three months. Super cool."

 _Here_ is where Cam flinches. He drops his embrace, hands catching on her elbows, and looks from Massie's face to where she knows her father is hovering behind her.

"Right," she hisses, forcing him to let go of her.

Of course they'll want to talk to each other, to strategize or whatever they do. It's always quiet conversation and male bonding and crap like that when they're together and Massie never minded because William had been Cam's mentor and apparently mentoring never ends. But now it is time to talk about _her_ , not punish her for something she didn't even _do_ and make her read stupid letters all day and night.

Which she has not been doing, even though she is supposed to. They make her so angry and she can barely stomach the thought—except… except for earlier, when her curiosity got the better of her.

It made her nauseous in the end, the way the Capitol wants to test her like this. Seeing those words, making Four out to be a nice guy…

She feels the bile rising even now, as she ignores the silent conversation her father is having with Cam about _her_.

"Should I leave?" she demands, crossing her arms over her chest.

Cam sets his eyes on her again and because she cannot bear to look into his blue one—it reminds her of how much she hated that twerp from Two, Landon—she notices the state of his face.

It's almost as if he hasn't slept in days. His skin is whiter than ever, his cheeks hollow. There's defeat in the curve of his mouth and an exhaustion that spreads from the dead look in his green eye to the shoulders that slump. He makes himself look younger than he is, like he is fourteen again, being pulled from that arena, trembling and tiny.

"No," he says.

"So, what? I'm supposed to stand here all day and watch you two act more like father and son than _you_ "—she juts her chin at William—"act like you're _my_ father? No, thanks."

Cam shoves his hands in his pockets. "That's not what this is."

"Then what is it?"

"We need to start thinking about your Tour," says her father, but he is still looking at Cam, eyes raking over his disheveled form. He is concerned, Massie notes in annoyance. He didn't even look like this when she exited her hospital room.

Instead of voicing that, she replies, "You said we didn't have to."

"Yeah, well," William retorts, "Myner pushed both of them up, with there being two of you and all."

" _Both_?"

Cam winces at the volume of Massie's shriek and sidles away from her. There is a bruise at his collarbone where his sweater shifts, starting to bloom purple against his fair skin. If she looks closer, there are teeth marks bitten into the column of his throat. _Of course_. They had to pick Cam up from some rendezvous with one of his District Two women. For _fuck's_ sake. Here she is, kind of worried about him, but no longer.

"Derr—" Cam starts to say, but William silences him with a look, a _don't say his name_ look, which is… it's fair. Massie has a habit of seething whenever anyone makes him out to be an actual human being. "Four's Tour started a month into your—recovery."

Massie purses her lips. "They normally start six months after," she tells them. They know this, so she doesn't know why she does. "To give the Victor time to relax, so they can be the most charismatic—"

"Four can turn charismatic on and off like a light switch," explains Cam. "He needs no time to prep. He's… the interviews were sort of a test, I think. He passed his with flying colors."

"Even with the crying?" Massie can't help the disgust that escapes her.

Cam blinks, startled, and she can tell he wants to look at William. He doesn't. "Even with the crying," he agrees. "That might have given him a leg up, actually. Women were… well, you know how Capitol women can get."

"So he's been on his Tour for about two months," Massie deduces. She frowns, staring past the two men and through the window outside. They're taking a weird, roundabout way to One, heading farther out and then turning around. The ocean is getting closer, its smells permeating the train cars. "That can't be good for me."

"It's not a competition," begins Cam.

"Of course it is!" Massie whirls around, shoving a finger into his chest. Her sudden movements have him cringing, though he hides it, and she immediately drops her hand. "How can you think it isn't? Two people came out of that arena, Cam, _two_ , and you're telling me that my being incapacitated doesn't shift the odds?"

"The odds of _what_?" Cam demands.

"This never happens!" she exclaims, stalking closer to the window. "Literally never. Every year, twenty-four kids go in and one comes out. It doesn't matter what happens in there. The Capitol kills if you can't, and the greatest survivor is rewarded. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't. _And_ ," she adds quickly, shooting her father a miffed glare, "it is _not_ my fault. I am just waiting for the next shoe to drop and Four being able to go on his Victory Tour earlier than me does not bode well."

Cam's fingers twitch. William clears his throat, but remains silent.

Massie sighs, shaking her head. "You know what?" she decides. "I'm going to go to my room. When you guys want to start being helpful, you know where to find me."

She's not even halfway down the hall when she hears Cam go, "Good to see she's back and better than ever."

It's sarcastic, she knows. Cam has never liked her piss-poor attitude, but whatever. This is what he gets when he wants to be all quiet and secretive. This is what he gets now that she's the Victor of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games.

"Yep," her father says. "Glad to see it."

She slams her door for good measure.

 **...**

 _Did you know my trident cost almost 2.5 billion dollars?_

 _Did you know Victors have to repay the sponsors for their generous gifts? I didn't._

 **...**

Massie is eating breakfast, sliced strawberries and toast covered in peanut butter, honey, and bits of banana, when her eyes catch the television screen, muted, because the Capitol channels are so irritating this early in the morning, and because Cam is currently fast asleep sprawled across the couch.

He mumbles a lot in his sleep, things like _no_ and _please_ and _stop_ and _don't_. They are words he does not have issue saying while awake but the way he does it now, pleading and quiet and small—they give her pause. They made her silence the TV, made her listen in on him, pay attention to him. She wonders if it's nosy, if she should leave, but she doesn't because now she is rooted to the spot, staring at the screen across from her.

Merri-Lee Marvil's show has been playing in the background, the woman going on and on about this, and that, and this again. Massie watches this often, idly, to let the time pass by. It's how she learns a lot of things, from up and coming designers to the colors of the year to which Victor is the year's most popular to which one made the biggest charitable contribution of the season.

It's also how she learns Derrick Harrington from District Four made it to the big Capitol party in his honor last night.

And the most interesting thing happens: Massie takes one look at him, all golden-haired and tall and so very, very stunning, and her stomach flips. And it does not flip in anger, but rather…

She swallows, choking on her fruit.

Okay, _whatever_ , this is a normal reaction to an incredibly attractive person, and attractive is what this kid is, even if he is also insufferable.

He _is_ insufferable, so insufferable, and he's in her way, and he's ruining everything, but he is so—his stylist really knows how to dress him, that's for sure. She hadn't seen him in so long she'd almost forgotten just how pretty he actually is. Even in the arena, with the blood all over him and the murderous glint in his eye, he was…

He was...

He _is_...

She raises the volume, Cam's sleep be damned, and is hit with his voice, giving the speech his mentors and escort have undoubtedly perfected for him. The timbre of his District Four accent caresses each word as it leaves his mouth; it sounds almost like a song, that's how smooth his speaking is, and she is enraptured for a moment. Or two. For several moments, actually, and while Massie cannot look past the freckles on his cheeks and the easy way he grins, her blood still boils at the sight of him.

Before she can find something to throw, the screen shifts back to Merri-Lee, who is positively cooing over the boy. "It seems," she says, "that I am not the only one enamored with our newest Victor! I dare say he may be even more popular than District One's very own Cameron Fisher!"

 _He literally just won. There is no way he can be_ more _popular_ , Massie thinks.

But that is a way for Merri-Lee to delve into the various women Four spent his night entertaining, snapshots of ladies with bright colored skin touching him at his knee, shoulder, lower back. There are even some of him and these… these… _things_ so close together it looks like they are one, like they are _kissing_ —

She grits her teeth, angry at the thought of these people touching him when it should be her hands all ove—

" _What_ ," she snaps at herself. That isn't right. She doesn't… not with… _no_.

She grits her teeth, angry at the thought of these people touching him because that means he is ahead of her. He already has a leg up, making the Capitol love him, letting them eat out of the palm of his hand. If there is already one Victor that they love, why would they bother with her?

(A better, more manageable thought process. One that makes sense.)

Of course she had to have the more extensive injuries. Of- _fucking_ -course.

"I told you women love him," Cam comments, a rasp of a sound. "His mentors are good, playing up on his hype like that. It seems…" He pauses, paying attention to the screen. Looks like Derrick from Four has already made "friends" with a Gamemaker's wife and—oh my _god_ , are those Merri-Lee Marvil's eldest twins? "...easy for him," the man finishes lamely. "We'll have to work on your persona, too, you know."

Massie sneers at the screen, not sure if she is irritated with him (for being who he is), the women (for being so foolish), or herself (for putting this on in the first place). "Work on my persona?" she repeats. "Can't I just be myself?"

"If _this_ is the self you want to be," Cam answers, "I'm afraid not."

"Why not?" Massie chews on a strawberry, imagining she is crushing Jamie Marvil's head between her teeth. The juice is her blood and Massie revels in the imagery as it fills her mouth. "Why won't she get her fucking hands out of his hair?"

Apparently she snaps this much louder then she anticipates because instead of answering her first question, Cam goes, "What?"

His gaze burns her cheek.

"I…" Massie avoids looking at him, studiously watching the screen. That girl stains his face with her ugly fingerprints and he has the utter audacity to look pleased with the way she's manhandling him. "She could do better," she decides on saying. She bites down viciously on her strawberry again only to find it is gone and she has ground her teeth together instead.

Cam is silent as he watches her and Massie knows what he is looking for; it's what everyone is looking for, apparently, and she shifts so she is sitting with her back straight, chin raised just enough.

"Right," he says. "She could, but this is Jamie Marvil we're talking about—she only wants what's most popular when it's most popular then she discards it."

"Ooh," Massie coos meanly. "Are you upset you're no longer what's most popular?"

He grins, all sparkling white teeth, and says, "No. Let him have her. She's a terror anyway."

"I'm more of a terror," Massie blurts because she does not like that response.

"Yeah, you are," is Cam's reply, but it is coated in some sort of sadness, a melancholy she can't read. That's his whole personality these days. She's never known him to be anything other than rambunctious and annoying, over the top and flirty—and most importantly uncomfortable when she flirts back. "Which is why," he changes course, "we need a different persona for you. A terror was _not_ what you projected to the country before the Games."

"Can't the Games have changed me?"

"Not so much that you are not charming and witty and someone the people want to back." Cam sits up, yawning. "Maybe you should rewatch your first interview to remember who you were."

"So I can't be any different?"

"No, that's not… _shit_ , Mass, do you think I went in like this? I was _fourteen_." Cam runs a hand through his hair. "Of course you can be different. That is expected, but you cannot be so different that the Capitol does not recognize you."

She has a retort on her tongue but curbs it, letting his words wash over her. _Do you think I went in like this?_ She had never thought that he hadn't. She's only ever known him as this: beautiful, sensual, artfully disheveled with perfect answers on the tip of his tongue.

She doesn't want to think too much about that though so she merely shoots back, "Are you saying I'm unrecognizable?"

"I'm not saying you're _unrecognizable_ ," Cam says, even though he is. "I'm saying… you need to be more like you were before and during with only minimal changes."

"And what were your minimal changes?" Massie snaps at him.

Cam's entire face changes, all smooth and alluring, when he purrs, "You can't tell?"

Massie looks at him, at the way he transformed, no longer tired, stern, and helpful but rather appealing and attractive. She blinks and replies, "Is there a difference?" because she refuses to admit she was impressed by his changing of masks. And a little jarred.

He chuckles, a low, husky thing, and shifts in such a way she cannot help but watch the lines of his body. Cannot help the heat that rushes up her neck to her ears, to her cheeks. This is not normally how this goes. Normally he is flushing when she says something with suggestion. Normally she is laughing at the look on his face and flouncing away.

"You're not the only one who can play this game," he whispers, leaning forward to brush his nose against the line of her collarbone.

She shudders, his nose cold against her skin, burning up bit by bit, and she sits stock still, hardly breathing. Cam huffs a laugh against her. Massie hates the shocks that surge through her body at his touch—at the obvious attraction, because this man really knows what to do, even if he's not doing much, and at the sudden and violent dislike that follows that attraction.

Her body does not want this.

Her memories do not want this.

Without much warning and without her knowing, flashes of something else, of _someone else_ , flit to the forefront of her mind. Disgust floods over the attraction, expelling it from her in the same way her hands go to shove him away. Her arms are strong as she does this, his back slamming against the side of the couch he'd been leaning against, just as strong as the phantom touches of someone else she is remembering.

They do the same thing with their nose, laying claim to her collarbone, to the skin at the junction of her neck. A mouth kisses her there, at her shoulder, teeth grazing, tongue swiping. She would've thought it was Kemp had the images not been of fairer skin, tanned from exposure to the sun.

Cam leans forward again, eyes serious yet glimmering playfully, and he wraps his fingers around her wrist.

" _Don't touch me like that_ ," she snaps, pulling away.

Someone else should be touching her like that.

She swallows, pulling the long sleeves of her shirt over her knuckles, and looks at the television in front of her again. They're still talking about Four, and she thinks Merri-Lee may actually be dissecting the degrees of his beauty, and Massie—

Massie wonders what it'd be like to kiss him. To _really_ kiss him. Kiss him and mean it.

"Massie," Cam says, but it doesn't sound like his voice. It doesn't have the same lilt as hers does. It sounds… it sounds…

"Massie," Cam says again. For some reason, she hears a blast afterwards, but the train is still moving steadily ahead, and no one seems in a rush to see what happened. She is trembling, though, heart pounding with anxiety, with nerves.

She swallows, pulls her gaze away from where she's staring at Four's mouth, and meets Cam's eyes. "Sorry," she tries to drawl, but it comes out panicked, nervous, "did you say something?"

"Are you okay?"

His mouth is red where Derrick's is pink. She remembers the way Four's felt against hers, soft and pliable even though they'd been fighting—

Had they been fighting? Of course they'd been fighting. It was the Hunger Games. She kissed him to distract him, to lead him unawares… and yet—

His mouth had been pink, and soft, and had fallen open easily beneath hers. She remembers this. Remembers the feel, the taste, how she'd almost lost herself in the kiss. How it had taken her longer than she would've liked to grab that knife and stab him.

And part of her, the one comparing Cam's mouth to his, seems unsure about all of this. This memory, it isn't… it doesn't add up to what she knows is true. She knows she kissed him to distract him, knew she could use her sexuality to get a leg up, knew he was interested in her—her looks, not her personality. But she feels… she feels like maybe…

No. The only reason she is doubting what she knows is Myner, and her father, and the letters because Cole saw something in those Games that even you didn't. And if he saw it then everyone saw it.

No.

No.

 _No_.

"What's the matter?" Cam inquires. The mischievous look in his eye has faded into some sort of subdued awareness like he knows what's wrong with her even if she doesn't.

She hadn't realized she'd said no out loud.

Weakness is not a fault she wants to embrace so she merely replies, as flippantly as possible, "How do you recommend I mold myself?"

He blinks, confused.

"For the Tour," she supplies, "or did getting me all riled get you too hot and bothered to remember the task that lies ahead of us?"

Cam rolls his eyes, looking up, and Massie grins at the pink on the underside of his chin. She's not as amused as she normally is; it's kind of forced, but it's enough. She will force herself to find enjoyment in the little things just to rid herself of these traitorous thoughts of Four, and mouths, and kisses. Myner and her dad and those letters want her to succumb to them. Want to destroy her. She will not let them.

"Oh," says Cam.

"Right," says Cam, and he's smiling at her, this tiny sort of thing that she wants to wipe off his face immediately. "You'll have to be a bit more pleasant—and a little more… open to emotion. Humble, if you will."

" _Humble_?!" she repeats. "I was not humble in the arena, what the _fuck_. I was—I was not someone who needs to be _open to emotion_!"

"No, you—" Cam cuts off suddenly and starts again, "Regardless of who you were, this is who you are now. Competing with Derrick with viciousness will not work well in your favor. You've seen him: he's loveable and charming. So you will be the same."

Massie quirks a brow. "You want me to be loveable and charming?"

"I want you to be the person you already are," Cam explains, "just… maybe tone down the aggression."

"I'm not aggressive!" Massie snaps aggressively.

"Try that again, babe," Cam commands.

She stiffens at the term of endearment—

 _It's an inanimate object, babe, it has no feelings_

—and immediately flees from the room, hands shaking, heart racing. She locks the door of her bedroom shut, ignoring Cam's shocked shout of _Massie?!_ and slides down the wood, breathing in and out as slowly as she can.

It's one thing to think about Four's mouth. That's acceptable. That's allowed. She's kissed it, even if it was for her own personal, violent gain.

It's a completely different thing to have one word, one measly, stupid word, spring a sentence she's positive she's never heard before into her brain. It's never existed, she is eighty percent sure of it, but it resonates within her like it has, like it amused her. Made her laugh.

The issue, though—

The issue is the voice that said it.

 **...**

 _I've been afraid of Dune this entire time. Since she died. I spent several of those days petrified of him. Ripple was—she is the nicest person I've ever met. I think that has to do with her age, but still. She never deserved this. Should not have been here. Someone else should have volunteered for a Victor's sibling. Even if it wasn't Missy, someone else should have taken that from her. The Baxters have already gone through enough shit._

 _And then I met him, for real this time, and Dune… he hugged me. I'm not ashamed to say I cried when he did it. I'm ashamed to say I couldn't save his sister. Couldn't bring her home._

 _I'm even more ashamed to say he doesn't blame me. He said it himself and I will never forget it, won't let myself forget it. "You did your best," he said to me, "and I can never thank you enough for weakening yourself for the sake of my sister."_

 _He'll never get over it honestly, and I don't think I will either, but not having him hate me is_

 _It's enough._

 _Fuck, Massie. Given everything else I'm about to face, I think Dune not hating me will be enough._

 **...**

Several hours and showers later, Massie decides she's definitely heard it before, but not from him. It has to have been from Kemp at some point—during training, most likely—and she's just invented it in Four's voice because she heard him talk on TV...

...and she's starting to forget what Kemp sounded like.

 **...**

 _I missed the ocean and the beach and the way the waves are a force all on their own just because they can be. The first day I got here I ran from the crowds around the train station and threw myself into the sea, just sitting on the sand as far out as I could go. I let the salt water cleanse me, I think, and I completely lost track of time. I don't think I would've even come out if Sage hadn't dragged me out herself. I think I would've let it take me away, chip off pieces of me until I was nothing. I feel so dirty sometimes, thinking of all the things I've done to get here, and in a short while I'll have to relive them again while I give fake ass speeches to each district and then the Capitol. I wonder why that is. The Victory Tour, I mean. Why does it exist? To bring pain to those who lost? To make the winner feel less and less like a decent human being? Sometimes I forget I volunteered for this. It's hard to figure out why anyone would. Why places like One and Two and Four create killing machines for fun and send them in there. This had been my goal my whole life. Yours too. How did we really believe killing other children would bring us glory and sense of worth? I don't feel honorable. I don't even feel like myself. It's like I'm detached from my body, watching it, watching someone else do the motions. I won't feel the same way again. I won't be the same ever again. I know that now. I wish I had known it then or else I wouldn't have made myself beat Chris Abeley out of the running._

 _No, I won't say that. If I didn't do what I did I wouldn't have met you. Meeting you was probably the greatest thing that's ever happened to me and I will kill six children all over again if it means you are at the end. I will kill as many people as it takes. I just hope you'll be able to recognize me when it's all over._

 **...**

When the train finally twists around a bend, turning back up north, Massie stands with her nose pressed to the window, eyes trained on the sparkling sea beyond the coast.

"What are you doing?" Cam asks, watching her, watching it, body twisted towards her. His shoulder is pressed against the glass.

"I remember thinking District Four must be a nice place to live," she tells him. She has never seen anything quite like this—expansive, sand for miles, water, water, water so _blue_. It is calm; it is rippling; it is deep and dark beneath. There is so much she does not know about it, about the creatures in its depths, about its secrets and its truths. "I think I was right."

Cam follows her gaze, mouth pressed into a line.

What she knows about Four is little. You're not really supposed to know anything about any other district besides your own, but she does know there is a main town, where the Reaping takes place, where the shops are, where the people of Four come together. There are other towns amidst the islands she can see from here, from the train. They are entities all on their own. She wonders if they are legal, if the Capitol still reaches them there. She wonders where in this district Derrick Harrington lives.

"When did you think that?"

Her eyes drop from the window to the paper clutched in her hand and back again. It's a quick movement, one she hopes he doesn't catch, but this is Cam, who won the Games when he was fourteen. He is very perceptive. He notices everything, including but not limited to the tiny way her breath hitches at that very moment.

In a blur of movement, he's holding the letter now, smoothing out the wrinkles she's unintentionally left in it. If he asks, she will lie about the amount of times she's read this one.

And she is reading them now, trying to fill the void this train ride creates in her. There is nothing to do now that the Capitol is only playing live footage of Four's Tour, old footage of districts he's already visited, highlight reels of his best moments in the arena—that she wouldn't even want to watch had her father and Cam let her. The two men don't have much patience with her, annoyed easily that she doesn't want to work on her own Tour, so she is left to her own devices.

Unfortunately she cannot cut her hair again—she'd look awful with a pixie—and she's already showered ten times today, having woken from a nightmare where Skye from Two drenched her in blood from carving her face. She's never been afraid of that stupid blonde girl so she's not sure why she shot up, nauseous and heart racing, pressing her hands to her mouth, her mind manipulating her to see blood on her fingers, feel it on her cheeks, her neck, her chest. She was sitting in it, drowning in it, and her face hurt. Even the water ran pink as she washed one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten times, and there are scabs all over her back from her scrubbing so hard.

It was early in the morning, too early, when she made it back to her bed, exhausted but wide awake. She took one look at the bed, at the blood she was certain was coating her sheets, and balled them up, comforter and pillows and all, and threw them in the corner of the room. Then she grabbed the first letter she could get her hands on and mimicked the bedding, curling up in a different corner, arms wrapped around her legs, and she read.

And she read.

And she read.

And she read.

And in her fragile state of mind, she believed him.

 _Meeting you was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me._

Cam frowns as he takes in those words too and Massie stares ahead, eyes flickering from sand to sea to something swimming, leaping, diving. Birds fly overhead, calling to each other. If she had better eyesight, she'd see children playing amongst the waves, foraging for shells, helping their families fish for food for the Capitol, and then themselves.

She hopes she snaps out of it soon. Derrick in the letters does not match Four in real life and it is very confusing to her. Because he is a real person on paper but outside of it he is a wolf in sheep's wool. She can't put them together because it doesn't make sense.

Today she likes Derrick in the letters. She has a feeling she's liked him this whole time. That's probably why she has such a strong, angry reaction to him. He is not real and it upsets her.

She will never tell anyone that, but she has a sinking suspicion Cam already knows. He always knows.

"When I visited Four the first time," he breaks the silence, "it was so overwhelming. It's just as nice as it looks and the people are even nicer. It's not like it is at home where everyone pretends to be something they're not. Four is… Four is very authentic. They miss every single one of their tributes, but they do not blame the Victor for doing what had to be done. It was… it's very cleansing. I think it has to do with the sea. It says it in the letter. Beneath the waves you can be reborn."

 _Reborn_. What a concept.

"You may have enough time to visit the beach," Cam says, "if you wish to."

"I don't understand," Massie admits, feeling a twinge of disappointment as the boundaries of Four disappear and trees trees trees fill her vision. She turns away from the window, uninterested.

"The Tours are condensed, so I'm not sure how much time you'll have in each—"

"No," she murmurs. "I don't understand _these_." She lifts her fist, where Cam slipped the letter back between her fingers.

"Myner wants to make sure you don't have any sign of feelings for Der...Four." It's the same answer as always. The only answer.

"Why would I? He's cruel and awful and, and— _this_ …" She shakes her hand. "This isn't him. There is no sign of him in these letters. It's like… it's like he _wants_ me to have feelings for him, but there is no him to have feelings for. _Who_ wrote these and why does it matter so much that I read them?"

Cam is silent for a long, long while. So long that Two comes back into view, dark and dim like a city in need of saving.

He takes a step forward, cups Massie's face in his hands, and leans close. Too close.

Her body goes rigid again, like it did before, and Cam blinks at her, blinks at her like _calm down I'm not going to do anything but you need to pay careful attention to me_ , and Massie fights down the urge to slap him, jerk away. Fights the memory of someone else this close, with hands darker than his and eyes that look golden in the sun—

"Go away," she whispers.

"No," says Cam, and his nose is touching hers. He is talking so quietly it's like there is no sound and Massie only knows what he's saying because she can feel the words against her mouth. That is how close their faces are. "Everything is bugged and you need to understand."

Her hands lift on their own accord, gripping his elbows. He settles his palms on her waist, holding her like she is nothing more than a doll. "Bugged," she repeats, softer than she's known herself to speak. "Both or just one?"

She's afraid to be specific. Afraid that she's afraid because she's done nothing wrong, but if she's done nothing wrong there's no reason to be afraid, right? If she's done nothing wrong, Cam wouldn't be looking like that, pressing up against her like this to talk to her, and her father wouldn't be monitoring a television and forcing her to read letters and act a certain way, and—and—

The shrug of Cam's shoulders tells her he has no idea but he's not taking any chances. "It's a test," he breathes. His breath washes over her and the brush of his mouth against hers is horrifying and something she doesn't want and tastes like mint. "You weren't in the hospital for internal bleeding and broken ribs, you were fully healed on that hovercraft, they broke your ribs and made you hurt to keep you there and then they—"

"What are you two doing?" William questions. His voice is such a loud booming shock Cam and Massie pull away quickly, jumping apart like they are two lovers getting caught by their parents.

"Freaking her out," Cam replies, voice back to bored and teasing. If Massie trusted herself enough to look at him, she'd see the smirk playing at his mouth, the same one that whispered things at her, things that don't…

They don't make sense.

William looks at them for a moment, at Massie's pink, pink, pink cheeks and Cam's quiet contentment, and says thickly, "My daughter is not a thing for you to play with. You should know better than that, Cam."

"You never said," Cam retorts easily, "how am I supposed to know if you do not explicitly state she is off the table?"

Her father is pale now, blue eyes troubled, and looking all the more like he wants to vomit. "It was unspoken," he answers. "She is off limits. Do your best to remember that."

"She's like my sister," Cam feels the need to defend, crossing his arms. "I'm just teasing."

Will quirks a brow. "Sure looked like _teasing_ ," he hisses. "Do not make me separate you two."

"You need me," Cam says certainly. "You can't do this without me."

"Don't make me show you I can," William snaps, "and do not do anything stupid." It's like he knows.

Massie finds herself, or part of herself, and forces out, "I can make decisions for myself, thanks."

"He is not a decision for you to make," William tells her. "He is a _no_ and that is final."

When he leaves and Massie is left thoroughly confused, she turns to Cam and demands, "What do you mean they—"

"No," Cam says, interrupting her. He is not even paying attention, staring at the spot William was standing. A frown mars the smooth skin of his face.

"No?" she repeats. "What do you mean _no_?"

He turns his head as if discovering she is still there and his blinking seems comical. It is like he was there, but he wasn't and now he really, truly is, and he is coming to terms with the reality around him. He stares, takes Massie in, looks at his own hands, and swallows. "Read the letters, Massie," he orders. "You have to be done with them by the time we get back to One. The Capitol is first on your Tour and I'm sure Myner will want to make sure you are… alright."

And then he is gone, prowling in the opposite direction, slamming the door to his bedroom car as loud as she can.

 **...**

 _I wondered for a while why I was so alone in this house. I thought maybe my family didn't want to live here. They were never interested in the Games. It never once occurred to me that_

 _There was_

 _I missed the first funeral. My sister died while we were in the arena. Drowned._

 _She knows how to swim. I don't understand how_

 _The second one was a week ago. I was on the train. It takes two weeks, give or take, to get to Four from the Capitol. That was for my mother. She got stung by too many jellyfish but when I went to the ocean there were no jellyfish. Where are the jellyfish? How did they kill my mother? She is smart enough to know not to go swimming when there are too many of them out._

 _My father slammed the door in my face when I went home. He blames me but how can he blame me for this? The sea takes what it wants when it wants, everyone in Four knows that. It is its own being and has its own thoughts and desires. I did not tell it what to do._

 _My brother and his family moved and left me no forwarding address. They must blame me too. They must be protecting themselves. But I didn't do it. I don't know why they think I would._

 _It wasn't until I finally explored all the rooms in this house that I figured it out. The little side room off the kitchen was full of bouquets of flowers and I would have thought they were from well-wishers but they were the ugliest things I'd ever seen. Bleeding hearts and bloodroots and foxglove and larkspur and all other kinds of poisonous flowers, arranged without any care in the world, deliberate in their hideousness. There was a card on each arrangement with the same message. I wonder if you know what it was without my saying it. I wonder if you know who they were all from._

 _Did you know they punish you if you don't play the game the right way?_

 _I hope they are only punishing me._

 **...**

Massie emerges from the bath only because her lungs are screaming at her.

Water drips over the side of the tub as she gasps, clinging to the sides. She doesn't know how long she was under, just that she is cold. Desperately gulping oxygen and shivering, the purple bubbles she's grown to like popped and the temperature dropping with every second. She presses her thumb to her index finger, staring at it but not really seeing.

Her mind is reeling and once again she hears Cam in her head. She heard him as she prepped the bath, as she sat in it, as she ducked her head beneath, trying to get rid of his words. They merely got louder down there.

 _You weren't in the hospital for internal bleeding and broken ribs, you were fully healed on that hovercraft, they broke your ribs and made you hurt to keep you there and then they—_

It makes no sense. Why would the Capitol break her after she was healed? Why would the Capitol bug train cars? Why do they _care_?

She was most certainly injured enough to warrant an extended hospital stay, as irritating as it was, as irritating as it still _is_.

A trident to her chest, three slashes deep and long. There was so much blood, so much to stitch up. The prongs had fractured, had _broken_ , her ribs. Bone had splintered. She'd seen it. She'd lived it. She remembers a vague pain, and that is all—she must've been unconscious for most of it.

This has to be part of the test, too, Cam feeding her lies. He's got to be reporting to Myner, her dad has got to be reporting to Myner; they are _always_ reporting to Myner. They love the Capitol, they are loved in the Capitol, they _are_ the Capitol.

There are letters and words and Cam and things that do not add up.

There is _meeting you was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me_ ,

and there is _they broke your ribs and made you hurt to keep you ther_ e,

and there is _my daughter is not a thing for you to play with_ ,

and there is _I hope they are only punishing me_ ,

and there is this kindness and genuine affection in slanted handwriting,

and there is something pressing against a barrier in her mind,

and there is someone here not telling the truth.

Massie doesn't who it is. Doesn't know what's happening. Doesn't know doesn't know doesn't know. She knows she is almost home and she is not done reading the letters. There are still so many left. She knows Cam says it is a test. She knows her father interrupted them most likely on purpose because Cam was about to tell her something. She knows Cam is avoiding her so he does not do that.

Her fingers are wrinkly when she grabs the next letter, not caring if she ruins it in the bath. Her neck aches from where it lays and she lifts a foot, attempting to add more hot water, but it slips as she reads.

 _I heard_ , it says.

 _I'm sorry about your mother_ , it says.

 _Do you think_ , it breaks off, doesn't finish the thought.

 _I'm sorry_ , it says again.

Massie doesn't know she's screaming until there are loud fists against the door.

Her name is said over and over, and she hears it, sort of, but doesn't hear it, not really. She looks at the letter, looks at the letter, looks at the letter, looks at the letter—

—and then she is looking at some gossip rag, and her mother is sitting across from her, grumbling about this and that, circling things in her own magazine. She'd just gotten off the phone with who Massie believed was one of her fashion designers in the Capitol.

Massie snorts at this society column on Cam. It claims he's officially taken a serious lover, some son of a wealthy politician, but that's gotta be crap. Cam would never settle. He likes his freedom too much. He may go back for seconds or thirds but never monotony.

Kendra continues to talk to herself, breaking a pencil on impact. Massie looks at her, at the tense shoulders, the fire in her eyes—Massie's eyes—and asks, "Are you okay, Mom?"

There is an unsettling silence and then: "Your _father_ has decided to stay in the Capitol a while longer."

"So?" Massie asks. "He's always doing that."

"Myner's lapdog," Kendra mutters, shaking her head.

Massie frowns. "What did he say?"

"It's not what he said, honey," Kendra replies absently. "It's what he didn't say. He's always saying one thing but meaning another." She sighs, short. "I wish he would grow a backbone."

Grow a backbone? Her father is the scariest man in the country. He beheaded almost every tribute in his own Games, has his axe hanging in the president's house, has been so infamous with it that no one else bothers to wield it. If he doesn't have a backbone, surely no one does. What is her mother talking about?

Kendra looks up, peering intently at her daughter. They are spitting images of each other: amber eyes, sharp cheekbones, pert noses. Massie has a rounder face than Kendra and spends more time outside, skin kissed slightly with sun and freckles. "Let me give you one piece of advice about men, Massie," she opts to say, which is weird, " _listen_."

"Shouldn't you be telling _them_ to listen to _us_?"

"Maybe," says Kendra, "but I am telling you to use your ears and read between the lines."

"What does that mean? Not every man is cryptic."

"They are, if you look close enough," Kendra murmurs. "Stop it with that magazine, will you? These letters won't read themselves." She shoves envelopes her way and goes back to circling things, still mumbling about her father.

 **...**

"What's happening? She's unresponsive."

"This is what she does—did. Before the treatment. The point of it was to stop this from happening. They didn't want her to act like—"

"Like she's adversely affected by the Games. Victors who do not prove they are valuable lose value at once."

"Did he explicitly say…?"

"I refused it point blank but he may do it anyway. You know the kind of people there are out there. They will not care if she's…"

It starts to come to her then; she knows these voices, knows these people. She wants to respond, let them know she's there, but her mother's voice sounds in her mind. _Listen_.

So she does, but she makes herself aware of her surroundings.

She is cold, colder than before. Her hair is wet. She thinks she's in a sweatshirt, but it's not hers. It's too long. Too big. She will only find out where she is if she opens her eyes. She won't. She knows she is not in the tub anymore.

"Yeah," says Cam. "They won't. They'll like it." He sounds disgusted. "We can't let that… not to both."

Her father's hand is in her hair, detangling it with his fingers. "I regret," he begins, "letting her get it in her head."

 _What does that mean?_

"It wasn't you," Cam replies. "It was him. He fed her all the lies."

"I let him get close."

"To protect—"

"No," William says, "out of fear."

The quiet that settles over them is full of something indiscernible. It makes Massie want to shift, want to blink, want to look, but she knows she shouldn't.

It is broken by Cam. "The rebellion," he offers. "What are they saying?"

"It is quiet, which is good," William answers. "Hopefully it is dying down. Massie is not on their side and neither is the boy."

 _Why would I be?_

"And when they see her on her own Tour? How will we spin it? He is the same. She is not."

"She is not taking to your notes?"

"They did a good job of making her not realize she's different," Cam murmurs. "She doesn't understand why I need her to be nicer. She doesn't… if I can't get her to be even a little bit pleasant…"

"Were you trying to tell her earlier?"

"She's asking questions. She's confused. She… I think it's having the desired effects," Cam admits. She hears him run a hand through his own hair, breathing deeply through his nose. "The letters—she's growing attached to him. She doesn't seem to like it."

William doesn't respond, now twisting her hair between his fingers. His touch feels heavy, weighted down by his thoughts. Massie feels his worry.

"They're going to notice she's different," Cam stresses. "How are we supposed to explain that? Why did Myner do this _now_? Couldn't it have waited until after the Tours?"

"I think Cole is just humoring me," William releases. He clenches his hand around the makeshift bun he's twisted her wet locks into. "I suggested the treatment, did I tell you that?" There is a pause. Cam must shake his head. "I didn't think it would be this aggressive. I didn't think they would… I assumed it would block the messages that make her scream all the time. I didn't think they'd make her into this. I only wanted to fix her. The only person I… He ruined her instead." He clears his throat. "I thought he merely wanted to break the boy, but I think he wanted to break me too."

Cam gets it before Massie does. "He has no intention of letting her live."

"Either of them," William corrects. "He will let her break the boy and then… I'm not sure, but I know he is not thrilled with there being two Victors. He will find a way for there to be one."

"He will want to make a mockery of the rebellion," Cam agrees. "He will want to send a message. Unwittingly Massie and Derrick played right into it. One can even argue he was leading them to this."

"How do you figure?" asks William.

Cam's weight joins Massie's and she feels his side against her leg. She must be on a bed. "The Gamemakers never went after either of them," he points out. "He never blocked any of the gifts. Their interactions with the mutts were tame compared to the other girl's. He let them live to give spark to a rebellion he is fully aware has been gaining traction and he will take it away bit by bit… just by giving the world what they wanted."

"Which is?"

"Hope," Cam says.

Massie has heard enough. She blinks her eyes open, takes in the bedroom she's laying in. Hers. Her father stands over her and Cam sits by her side.

"Mass—" one of them begins but she doesn't let them finish, mind swimming. She knows nothing; she knows everything. _Read between the lines. These letters won't read themselves_.

There is truth here and there is truth there. She needs to piece it together. "Letters," she demands. "Give me the letters."

 **...**

 _I love you. I miss you. I am doing this for you._

 **...**

It comes down to a pattern, one she follows almost religiously:

Breakfast. Letter.

Ignoring Cam and her dad. Letter.

Sleep, because her mind aches and she is so very tired, sifting through these letters.

Sleep.

Sleep.

Wake for dinner. Always miss lunch. Maybe talk about the Tour she doesn't want to prep for.

Letter.

Letter.

Shower. Shower. Shower. Always three showers, sometimes more.

Letter. Normally the one she read before she showered. Water makes her forget.

Sleep again.

Repeat.

 **...**

 _I hope you don't hate me._

(I don't.)


	8. Part Eight: Memory

**_Surprised I managed to edit this and get it up on time! I have a bad habit of forgetting what day of the week it is._**

 ** _I know there is always a lot going on in each of these parts, so to comment on a review: Kendra and Harris were killed by Myner as a punishment for the Games and Cam's warning when Massie was in the hospital the first time. There's really nothing else to it, just some casualties. Derrick lost both his mother and sister in a similar fashion, but only because he said "no."_**

 ** _I believe this will have 15 parts. I just finished editing part 10!_**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
_ _Part Eight_

* * *

 **memory | ˈmem(ə)rē**  
noun  
 _something remembered from the past  
_ synonym: recollection, remembrance, reminiscence, reminder, echo, impression

* * *

Through the letters Massie only grows more confused.

She takes her mother's advice. Her _dead_ mother's advice, advice she made up in her head when the thought of losing a parent scared her. She committed suicide, the papers say, and her father backs up: unhappy and unwilling to live anymore. A coward's way out.

But like the words on the papers and the memories in her mind, that doesn't make sense and it doesn't sit right. Her mother was not the type to kill herself even if she was feeling particularly sad. She'd take life by the reigns and turn it into her favor. That's how she managed to create stunning evening wear and influence designers for the Games. It's how they say she wrangled her father into marriage. Even when she was beaten down she always found something to make her live, to give her a leg up; there was always a lion cub to manipulate, just like in her arena. Death was never an option for her. She'd live longer than they allowed her just to spite them all.

She reads between the lines and avoids the surprising ache in her heart her mother's death brings her. She listens to her father, to Cam. She gleans that they know more than they let on but are talking in code, and that may not be because she is paying attention. She thinks it is because of the bugs on the train. She also gathers that William is not as upset as a husband should be that his wife has died. He grieves, of course, but he moves on with his life. He doesn't seem to think much of it, but she catches him once with his head in his hands and blaming himself. She thinks again that maybe the suicide does not make sense. Allows herself to think that perhaps it wasn't a suicide at all, but that thought leaves her as quickly as it comes because who would murder her mother, a famous Victor, and why would her mother not fight back?

She spends the remaining days locked up in her room, hungrily reading letters from a boy she is convinced does not exist. She reads them, then rereads them, then _rereads_ them.

Between the lines, she merely finds that there is much she does not know. Much, she thinks bitterly, her own mind is not letting her know.

There are conversations on this train that prick at her, that make her want to scream. There are sentences on paper that make something bubble within her, hints of something that cannot possibly exist. There are articles and gossip shows dedicated to a boy that makes her blood boil at the sight of him. There are dreams that feel like memories but cannot possibly be. There are flashes of blood and phantom feelings of blades on her face and hands on her neck and mouths against hers. There are hours she does not remember, washing and scrubbing and soaking in baths and showers, trying to clean herself of an arena that she has not been in for almost five months. There are shadows in doorways and faces behind her lids that haunt her. There are sentences that follow her from voices that have never said them.

There is _I can't wait to kill you_ and _I see you look at me_ and they are threats and taunts and they are not uttered in the voice she knows hates her.

There are whispers she knows are truths. There are embraces and kisses and oaths that betray the very core of their society but she cannot figure out who said what and why they did it and why she held so tightly to them that she remembers them now. Remembers them only when she is panicking, seeing blood and bone and rolling heads in empty halls and shoving her head under hot water and scrubbing her skin raw.

Massie doesn't figure much out by the time she gets to the last letter. She holds it tightly, reading it again, and takes her bottom lip between her teeth. She is sitting on the edge of the tub, her feet submerged in water that boils.

 _There is someone in each district and it does not have to be a person from that district. They are people from the Capitol that follow the tour. They are those bank managers and the people that control who gets food and when. They are escorts. They are Peacekeepers. Worst of all they are the people from the districts—the rich ones. The politicians. The ones who act like this does not affect them._

 _I entertain who they tell me to and I let them take what they want how they want it when they want it. I can't say no or suggest anything else or do what is not asked of me. Sometimes nothing is asked of me. Sometimes everything is asked of me. If I do not there are consequences. I have learned that the hard way. I have learned a lot in the past months._

 _I learned to hate myself and other people. I learned how to pretend pretend pretend and I learned how to make myself smile when I really want to cry. I learned winning is not worth it. I learned there are terrible people out there. I learned there is a chance you may not_

 _No. I do not want to write it. If I do that means it's real and it means I'm doubting. I'm not. All that I do is for that one thing. That one thing I know is true. It is the only thing I am certain of. The only thing that_

 _I heard you have been released from the hospital and your tour will begin in a few weeks. I will be back in Four by the time you get there. Meet me at the beach the first night. I know you've always wanted to see it and there is nothing more beautiful than the stars and the surf and the way the moonlight turns the water silver_

Crossed out multiple times like he is not sure he wants to leave it there is _except for you_ and it is the first time Massie has read a compliment in these letters and has not wanted to gag in disgust. She runs her fingers over the words, feels the indent of the pen, feels him writing them. She reads between the lines.

He does not say it and he has not said it in many, many letters. Not since something has happened to him that is out of his control. Not since something broke him into submission. There is a probing at her brain that tells her she knows what it is, has seen it before, but she cannot grasp the thought. She grasps his other meaning though, sees it in the way he tried to hide it from her, from himself maybe. From other prying eyes.

 _Except for you_ reads as _I love you_ even after all the shit he's been through. They took what they could but they could not take this.

Whoever wrote these wants her to believe he cares past the horrors of his own life. Wants her to believe he's holding on to her like a lifeline.

Massie drops the paper, digging her nails into her thighs, trying to pull herself out of the storm of confusion the letters brew within her. She feels the breaking of skin but still that confusion stays within her, heart warring with her mind.

She knows but she doesn't.

She knows but she doesn't.

She knows.

She doesn't.

She knows.

It is getting harder to find reason not to believe the words she reads. It is the sincerity in which they are written. It is how conversational they are, like they are things he wants to tell her. Sometimes inconsequential, sometimes important, though they are not too detailed. She is to be trusted. She _is_ trusted. They seem like… they seem like they are just thoughts he wants her to know because he knows they will meet again and he can tell her everything in full. They seem like their future is already certain and she is in his and he in hers.

With her nails in her legs and blood staining her fingertips, she sees her reflection in the bath water. A face bloodied with deep cuts at the corners of her mouth, red dripping all over her. She brings a hand to touch at her cheeks. She does not feel scars or gashes, but she sees a different, more male finger when she looks at her hand, a small puncture wound beading scarlet. A voice brushes against the walls of her mind, a guttural sounding of her name, a startled, pained shouting of the same, and— _I can't kill you._

Softer still: _I can't do this without you._

In response: _I won't do this without you._

Massie gasps, reaching into the tub to grab the letter she dropped into the water. Heart thundering, she is glad to see the words are still in tact and she reads and reads and reads the ending until it is seared into her mind, until the sentences are both the ones visible and the ones that are implied.

 _Meet me at the beach the first night._ I want to see you.

 _There is nothing more beautiful than the stars and the surf and the way moonlight turns the water silver._ It is my favorite time to be on the beach and I want to share it with you.

 _Except for you._ I love you.

She is already thinking traitorous thoughts, thoughts she hopes a good night's sleep will fix, so she allows herself one more. No matter what happens, she thinks she will go to the beach at the time he asks and she thinks that if he were to kill her there she would not mind getting killed by him.

The thought feels familiar.

 **...**

Her feet are mottled and red when she leaves the bathroom. Tiny crescent moons litter her thighs, already scabbing over, though the blood still stains the skin.

Cam takes one look at her and sighs. "Why do you do this?"

She watches him rub a tingly cream on her feet, between her toes, massaging lightly, and slipping warm socks over them. The material sticks and she answers, "I'm punishing myself."

"What for?" He cleans off her legs, inspecting her intently for any other sign of self-harm and finds none.

Massie is still jumbled and confused so she looks out the window as she gathers her thoughts. They are approaching One; she can tell by the increase in lights, the bustle of sound she can't really hear but knows is there, and the tall buildings that spring up as landmarks in the distance. As much as this is home she wants to turn back around and that is when she lets go.

She is still not happy she has to share her victory, still not happy she is in the dark for some reason, still not happy something is _blocked_ but she lets one little piece of her chip away and fall.

"I am starting to believe him," she murmurs. It is as quiet as she can make it, knowing this room may have ears in it. Maybe even eyes. She swallows, looking away from the window and placing her hand in Cam's hair.

For the first time she notices the way he stiffens at her touch before relaxing, realizing it is her. It is the first time she wonders if maybe his discomfort when she gets too close or flirts with him may not be because he's known her forever and she flusters him, but she doesn't know where that thought came from.

His hair is soft though. She runs her fingers through it absently, massaging into his scalp.

He swipes his own touch along her scabs, meeting her gaze. She keeps her heart rate down as she looks into both of his eyes, forces herself to acknowledge his blue one and the overwhelming feeling it burns through her. "And that is not good for us," she tells him. "I know I am not supposed to."

Cam doesn't say anything, not when she is dropping her hand to trail her fingers along his cheekbone, cupping his jaw, analyzing the lines of his face. Her thumb prods at his lower lip, a question burning in the furrow of her brow, and she is _so close_ to figuring something out. That disappears when he brings his own hand to capture her wrist, squeezing lightly as he says, "That depends."

"Depends on what?"

He glances from her to the corners of the room in such a fluid movement she almost misses it. "On what side you're on," he answers. "Can I see it?"

It takes longer than she would have liked to hand over the letter. It is one she does not want to part with. She thinks it's because it's the last one and there are still so many questions that remain unanswered. Cam understands this and lets her hold one side of the paper as he holds the other, reading as quickly as he can.

There is a war of emotions dancing across his face. She wonders if he can read between the lines like she can, if he sees the words she sees—ones that aren't really there.

He says something like _I need to get off this train_ under his breath and then, to her, "What do you remember?"

She is the most honest she's ever been when she replies, "All of it and none of it."

"Ask me one question," Cam orders.

"One?"

" _One_." Cam looks around again, face pinched, and scoots closer to her. If anyone is watching them they'll think they'll going against her father's orders from the other day. Is that—she thinks it might be deliberate on his part. And maybe hers, subconsciously, because there is no other reason why she would be so touchy with him. "Make it count," he murmurs.

He closes his eyes when she runs her fingers through his hair again, leaning into her hand, and Massie thinks.

She thinks and she thinks and the one thing that she really truly does not understand flings itself to the forefront of her mind.

"Did he kill Ripple?"

She remembers Ripple was twelve, very good at first aid, and uncommonly kind. She was tiny and toned and Dune Baxter's sister. The letters mention her a lot for someone who orchestrated her murder without a care, but Massie has these… these flashbacks that negate that. When she thinks about Ripple, Derrick from Four is always there: at her side, braiding her hair, feeding her fruit, watching out of the corner of his eye, killing someone for getting too close. All of this is in her brain, covered by a fog, and she does not know if she is making it up because she wants to believe the boy in the letters is the boy in real life.

Cam's eyes are clean when he opens them again and his voice is sure when he says, "No."

Massie's hands shake. He slips his fingers between hers and squeezes.

"What is real and what isn't?" she asks.

"I can't answer that," says Cam.

 _Read between the lines._

 _Listen._

She nods. "I'll have to go," she tells him, tapping the letter.

"You will," he agrees, "but that is a while from now. Remember that the first stop is the Capitol. Remember what they expect from you."

 _Remember what_ Myner _expects from you._

What he wants is proof she is not the person he thinks she is. The person he thinks she could be. That's why these letters are here. And it's working: Massie is not sure they are fake. Not anymore.

Doesn't know what's fake and what isn't. Not really.

"And if I am not want they expect?" she asks hoarsely.

"That's the thing, Massie. You can choose," Cam answers. "Decide who you want to be. What you want to know. What you want to believe. No one else can make those decisions for you."

She clenches the letter in her hand, somehow gathering strength from it. "What if I make the wrong choice?"

"You will still have me and your dad. You will always have two people in your corner. _Three_ ," he adds, squeezing her fist, "if you want to allow yourself that."

Massie blinks. "What do you know?"

He smiles a bit, sad and small, and says, "Read the letters again. Myner will be looking for any faults—you'll need to convince him. The train pulls into One tomorrow."

 **...**

She doesn't read them again.

She doesn't have to.

The proud part of her is embarrassed, but the other part, the one that knows more, the one that shields her, has memorized every word. And when she sleeps—

When she sleeps, the wall drops, just a bit, and she allows herself to remember.

 **...**

There is blood behind her ear, sticky and warm. She feels it gather there, but she ignores it; her hands are full of double-edged spear. She grits her teeth and goes to throw it again, unhappy with her recent performance, but is stopped.

"Be careful," Derrick Harrington says, "those dual-ended spears are vicious." He has the audacity to bring his fingers close to her face, pressing the pads against the wound she's inflicted on herself, almost as if she's not two seconds away from gutting him. "Sorry." He isn't. "May I?"

She blinks. Doesn't answer.

Derrick smirks, attractive and intriguing, and tells her, "You've nicked the skin here. How'd you get this thing back there?"

It's the first word out of her mouth: "Talent." It sounds stupid.

He sighs fondly and murmurs, "Come on." He only hesitates for a brief moment before wrapping his hand around her wrist. "Ripple's really good at first aid."

"That must come in handy," Massie shoots back. She doesn't know why she's following him. He's kind of irritating, the way he's always just around, in her periphery, in the spot next to her, down the hallway. "You're very clumsy."

"Is that so?" Derrick whispers. She doesn't remember him being that close. She tries to ignore it, the way the rumble of his voice sends shivers down her spine, and trips over her own two feet. "Looks like you're the clumsy one here, Block."

"I am _not_ clumsy," Massie snaps, unintentionally tightening her fingers around his. "It's just—"

"You're too close to me?" the boy suggests, a purr in her ear.

Massie stumbles again.

His laughter warms her blood, has her gritting her teeth… has her leaning into him—and not because she's _interested_ , god no, but because she's falling over.

"If you wanted me to hold you," Derrick says, "all you had to do was ask. This is a bit much."

She slaps against his chest, rolling her eyes. "As if I would ever _want_ —"

Derrick's grin is large and infectious. Massie finds herself mirroring him, unsure as to why, because her training has been paused, and if she is managing to injure herself, she is not as prepared as she'd hoped. "Looks like you do, though," he replies, breath ghosting over her cheek. When had he bent down?

"I tripped _once_ ," she argues.

"Twice," he shoots back, shifting his grip. She is pressed against his chest now.

"It's the blood loss," she responds airily.

He snorts. " _Blood loss_?" he echoes, laughing. "You have a tiny _scrape_."

"And yet you are so concerned you are having your partner check me out because she's _good at first aid_ ," Massie retorts, wrinkling her nose.

Derrick brings his hand to her face again, curling his fingers around her jaw. She feels him against her tiny scrape, as he calls it, and feels him hot against her chest. They're standing too close for comfort in the training room, surrounded by allies and enemies alike, but she can't… she can't stop looking at him. At the sharp lines of his cheekbones, at the gold sparkling in his eyes, at the unruly curls plastered to his forehead with sweat.

"Oh, believe me," he whispers huskily, and she wonders if he cares as much as she does that they have eyes on them, "she's not the one checking you out." He grins, teeth sparkling and face alluring. "At least," he adds, a finger reaching out to trace the shape of her mouth, "not the way I am."

Massie shivers before she shoves him away, taking great care not to fumble as she crosses the room to Ripple, who she allows to clean her up, ignoring the preteen's questions and giggling.

Seemingly unaffected and still in view, Derrick has no issue with the spear she struggled with, throwing it straight through a dummy's head.

 **...**

It is small, the memory, but more important, it is not something they can change. Not something that can be altered. No one alive has ever seen it, just Massie and Derrick from Four, and her mind…

Her mind has been confused about the _Games_ , nothing else. Everyone has seen those, everyone from the Capitol to Twelve; they know everything she's done. Have seen everything she's done. But no one has been given the privilege to see the behind the scenes of tribute training, not the Gamemakers, not the sponsors. Everything the world knows about them starts after the individual scores reveal.

(Massie, twelve. Derrick, twelve. Twelve twelve _twelve_.)

So this, this one thing that pricked and prodded and forced itself to center stage—it is fact; it is true; it has not been tainted. It gives off the same realness Cam's answer had— _did he kill Ripple? No_ —and Massie feels something in her cling to it. To the feel of this boy's touch, to the sparkle of his smile, to the way her heart had raced, had skipped beats when he got too close.

She chugs a glass of water, standing in her bathroom, and when she awakes again, early in the morning as the train slows into the stop at District One, she remembers only pieces of her second dream.

What she mulls over, ignoring the crowds of fans, friends (not really, no one was as good or as bad a friend to her as Kemp), and family (her father's and mother's alike), is the dark of the arena, the shout of that boy's name— _DERRICK!_ —and the thud of his feet as he runs to get his trident, which, for some reason, is hidden deep in the forest.

She shakes the hand of their mayor, another of President Myner's—and subsequently, her father's—friends, and gnaws at her lower lip as images of Ripple's body, pinned to the ground with blades Massie recalls Landon of Two favoring, replaces the sparkling pavement of the streets.

The roar of her district is drowned out by the shrieking of that twelve year old as a sharper, more cared for spear is shoved in and out of her chest, her stomach, her thigh, her shoulder.

Massie knows, so very certainly, that Ripple Baxter died slowly. Carefully. Deliberately.

She knows, not as certainly, that Landon of Two did it to destroy Derrick of Four.

She knows, but doesn't really, that if given the chance, Landon of Two would have killed Derrick of Four that same night. He was not given the opportunity.

She knows, just as certainly as she knows Ripple suffered, that Derrick used the trident he'd hidden to end Landon's life, a small act of revenge for brutally murdering a twelve year old girl… A twelve year old girl that never should have been there.

When Massie is settled in her own bedroom, so many months after leaving it for what she thought would be the last time, she pulls out her own stationary, spritzed with jasmine and vanilla. She does not date it, sign it, or address it, merely slips it into Cam's palm and says, "Make sure this gets to where I need it to go."

He nods, already knowing the location without her telling him, and exits the room when it makes the most sense. She wonders how he will do it.

She wonders, as well, if the four words written in her delicate hand are enough.

 **...**

The letter, when it gets to Four, reads:

 _Whatever happened to Missy?_

 **...**

Presently, Massie is trying hard not to regret that letter, trying hard to ignore the memories—are those what those are?—that plague her, day in and day out, and can't keep Cam and her father out of her room any longer.

The Tour starts in a few weeks, and even though she seems to now understand the urgency of cultivating herself into something less… _her_ , she does not want to do it. Does not want to lose her strength, and her ferocity. If she is anything else, she is—

"It is not _weak_ ," Cam emphasizes for the hundredth time. An exaggeration, but Massie feels they have this conversation once every five minutes. "There is really no need to be so defensive at every turn!"

"It's not defensive," William puts in (un)helpfully. "It's offensive. She's trying to rip your head off and all you did was ask how she's enjoyed her time in your district."

Massie sighs, crossing her legs at the knee. "I'm _sorry_ ," she snaps, "but there is no way I can even _pretend_ to enjoy my imaginary visit to Nine. I hate Nine."

" _You've never been there_!" Cam bites out. "How can you hate a place you've never been?"

"Easy," Massie replies. "It's not One, therefore I don't like it."

William arches a brow, all long and elegant, sprawled out on the leather chaise in her bedroom. He says the next thing so carelessly Massie has to believe he's rid their home—because she hasn't moved into her own yet, and probably never will—of bugs years ago. Or perhaps they never had any, being so close to the president. "And yet you stared at Four as we passed it with such…" He chooses this word deliberately. " _Longing_."

"I like the ocean." Massie shrugs.

"You've never seen that either," Cam retorts.

"Fine," she concedes, "I like the thought of the ocean. It seems… seems tranquil."

"Tranquil," Cam echoes. "What do you know about _tranquility_?"

"The ocean is the complete opposite of tranquil," her father adds. "Where did you even _learn_ about the ocean?"

She is silent.

Cam says, "The letters."

"You told me it was nice there, too," she snaps.

"Yeah, but I've been there plenty of times to make that assertion. You just—agreed."

"Would you lie to me about _the ocean_?"

"No, but those letters might."

Massie shakes her head. "No," she says, certain of this as she's been certain of nothing else. "He wouldn't lie about that."

"Hm." William hums. "How do you figure that?"

"I just… I just know."

It sounds flimsy, she is aware, but it is the truth. There are only a few letters she is willing to admit are one hundred percent true: the one where he talks about the price of his trident, the one where he talks about sitting in the ocean, and the one where he asks her to meet him at the beach. She guesses she can say the one about her mother's death is also true, but she doesn't like that one, or the knowledge that her mother is dead, so she ignores it.

William stares at her, not impressed, and she feels the need to explain herself. "I wouldn't lie about One to anyone, even if I hated them, or was trying to do whatever he is trying to do to me," she says. "So I believe that he would not lie about his home, either. I don't care what his motives are in doing so. I believe the ocean is nice, and peaceful, and I would like to see it someday, I think."

"And you'll get to," her father replies, "once you listen to our advice and make yourself _more likable_."

"I am likable enough as it is!"

Cam snorts. "The only people that want to hang around you are me, him, and Jakkob. Not even our annoying escort wants to be near you. She wasn't even on the train ride back here."

Massie blinks. She hadn't even noticed. Is that bad of her?

"Kemp liked me," she mumbles. The thought of him makes her heart hurt. Saying his name has jolts of guilt spreading throughout her body.

"Kemp liked the—" Cam starts, ready to win this argument, but her father's clearing of his throat gives him pause. He flicks his gaze to him, swallows, and says, quieter, "He did, but even he'd say you are being a bit much. He probably… he probably wouldn't even recognize you right now, to be honest."

"What do you mean?"

"He means you are being a right brat," William says, no sugar-coating here. "Entitled and pretentious and unwilling to listen. We're trying to help you, or do you want the world to like that boy from Four more than you? Have you forgotten the importance of this Tour? He has strength and time on his side. The world already knows him and the world already loves him."

Massie thinks of the annoying magazine articles about him, and his "dreamy" eyes, and his "sex god" hair, and his "killer" smile, and wants to _die_.

"It is a competition, Massie," he continues, even though she is half listening. "It is a test. You know it, you've said it: two never come out. Two did, this time, and you need to make sure it was worth it. They may have liked both of you in that arena, but there is no saying if they'll like both of you out of it." William pushes himself up, pressing his elbows to his knees as he gazes at her. "Cole is testing you on two fronts: did you do what you did out of genuine care and love for that boy and can you make the Capitol love two new Victors at the same time?"

Cam shoots her father a look, startled and stern, but Massie doesn't see it. Doesn't even hear most of that speech. What she _does_ , though, is the end.

"The Capitol loves all of their Victors at the same time," she says. "They love you, and Cam, and they loved Mom, and they go crazy over Alicia Rivera and Kristen Gregory—"

"We made ourselves useful. We made them believe they needed us, wanted us, loved us. In their eyes, we are worthy because of all the things we do for them." William holds her gaze, like he is trying to explain the meaning of life to her, not allowing her to look away or even blink, it seems. "When there is one Victor, they hone in on that one. That is where your talent comes into play. They _want_ whatever you can give them. When there are two Victors vying for attention and trying to prove themselves… do you really believe they will not pick one over the other?"

Massie licks her lips, suddenly dry.

Cam just _has_ to add, "And they cannot get enough of him there. He _is_ incredibly—"

"I _know_ how attractive he is!" Massie shouts at him.

"I was going to say charming," Cam returns with a chuckle, "but attractive works, too, I guess. Nice you know you think the same."

"I'd be blind not to." She sniffs. "I am not too proud to admit it."

Even William bobs his head in agreement. "He _is_ a remarkably pretty boy." He cuts a glance at Cam. "Kind of like you."

Cam grimaces.

Massie mistakes his discomfort for annoyance and opens her mouth to tell him he's, in fact, prettier, but she can't get the words out, even if she sees them on the tip of her tongue. A part of her knows that even if it is the truth, she, herself, would be lying by telling him that. For all she flirts and annoys and teases Cam, she finds Derrick from Four more attractive than him… and that makes her skin crawl.

"Fine," she snaps instead. "I will be more… how is it you want me to act?"

"Nice," supplies Cam.

"Preferably the same but without the animosity," suggests her father.

"Relatable," adds Cam. "More emotional. Maybe less inclined to scoff at bouts of crying."

"Most importantly," outlines William, "willing to discuss Four, share a victory with Four, even talk about Four positively."

Massie feels herself frown.

 **...**

She looks over the many speeches her father and Cam have prepped for her. It is of the utmost importance she does not deviate from any of these, no matter the circumstance, but, most especially, it is important she memorizes this first one, the one she will read at the Capitol during the party President Myner is throwing in her honor the next day.

It is a mixture of careful words about Derrick Harrington, her time in the arena, her gratitude towards her sponsors and fans. She will be everything they want her to be if she can just manage to keep a straight face for fifteen minutes, and she can, she will, if it means ensuring she does not fade to the background.

And she will read this. She will make sure to emphasize the right words. Smile at the right time. Will keep the shudder from her spine. She will not be rude; she will not brag. She will be kind, charismatic, and on her best behavior.

It's just… she's confused. Not like that is anything new these days, but she cannot be confused if she's going to stand in front of her president, and the Capitol, and everyone who watched, and rooted, and bet for her (and against her). She needs to be of a right mind, needs to have herself sorted before she heads over there, and she is… she's running out of time.

Massie tosses the speech to the side, reaches for one of the many letters she's finally finished reading. Her eyes scan those slanted words, but she does not see them, does not grasp their meaning. They could have said anything, they _do_ say anything, and how is she to trust what they mean when she has her own words that mean the same, if not less?

She throws her blankets off her legs and gets to her feet. Her oversized shirt falls to her thighs; she trips over her too long pant legs. She shuffles out of her room and down the hall, to where Cam has been staying, and does not bother to knock before she slips in.

It is then, with the moonlight strong against the sharp planes of Cam's face as he sleeps, that Massie realizes just how late it is.

That doesn't mean she's going to turn around, though.

She slips into the bed beside him, jostling the mattress enough to wake him, and stares at him until he opens his eyes.

He does not seem too surprised she is there, blinking tiredly at her. "I feel William will hate this if he walks in."

"Does he often walk into your room in the dead of night?"

"No," says Cam, "but it seems you do."

"One time only, darling," Massie replies. "Don't get used to it."

"I would never get used to such a thing," he replies around a yawn. "It's hard to believe you are here to cuddle, so—what do you want?"

Massie gasps a little, faux-outraged, and wraps her arms around his chest, burrowing into him. Cam follows her motions, embracing her, and rests his head against hers. "Start talking," he orders, "or I may fall back asleep."

"Can you tell me another truth?" she asks, voice small, muffled by him and a pillow.

She knows his words will make the most sense. Will tell her the full truth. Words written on paper will not. Cam… Cam has never lied to her, not once. She trusts he will make her understand. Will help her with a speech she doesn't believe in and a Games she is constantly confused about.

"You'll have to ask it," he tells her.

It is easy to. "Why does my kissing Derrick matter so much to everyone? Why do I have to prove it meant nothing?"

Cam's chest rises and falls slowly. His heart is calm beneath her ear. She is warm, wrapped up in him. She wonders if he can feel how nervous this inquiry makes her.

"Because," Cam says, after several moments of careful silence, "it didn't."

"Didn't what?"

She doesn't know why she asks this. She seems to already know the answer. It is prodding and clawing at the back of her mind, insistent, like _listen listen listen_ , even though it doesn't make sense.

( _But it does. It does it does it does._ She just won't _listen—listen, Massie_!)

He yawns, smacking his lips together in an effort to stay awake. His voice is slurred as he replies, "Mean nothing."

"What do you mean by nothing?" she whispers, hoping he doesn't take this as yet another question.

He is too tired to acknowledge her prying, or maybe he doesn't care. Massie fists the back of his shirt. "Whatever you remember about the kiss is wrong," he mumbles. She has to strain to hear him correctly, his words trailing into each other, hardly enunciated correctly. "You wanted to do it, so you did. You didn't do it to try to kill him or to confuse him. If that were the case, you wouldn't have done it so many times."

" _So many times_?"

Cam tightens his arms around her as she shivers, overwhelmed by his response. She knows he's telling the truth; even if she were worried he wouldn't—and she isn't, she knows him—sleepy Cam cannot create a lie to save his life. That's why she is here now, and not waiting until the morning, where he is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with her father in his corner.

"Think about it, Massie," he says, and she can hear him falling back to sleep. This is the end of the information she now so desperately craves. There is no way she can wake him again for more. "Why would Myner be so insistent you prove you do not have feelings for him if you didn't already have them?"

"But I _don't_ ," she whispers, more to herself than him.

Every time she thinks about Derrick Harrington, this angry warmth spreads through her veins and nausea takes over her stomach. The very _thought_ of him makes her ill. _Annoys_ her. He takes over her every thought process and riles her so much she sometimes cannot stop to focus on anything other than him—

 _…if you did not already have them…_

Cam snuffles against her, burying his head in her neck, and Massie lets him, carding her fingers through his hair.

 _…if you did not already have them…_

"I don't," she mouths, looking out the window, at the moonlight, and the clouds slowly crossing the sky.

She doesn't.

She does not.

She does _not_.

And yet—

Is there a chance the angry warmth is… is affection? Is the nausea in her stomach—are those _butterflies_? Does she not think about anything but him because she wants to? Because she _likes_ the curve of his smile, and the wave of his hair, and the gold flecks in his eyes? Did she get so mad at those girls touching him (on television, in magazines) because she wants to be the one doing it? Because she has done it, and he is not theirs, but hers?

Is there something here she is not seeing?

Is it important she sees it now? Should she have capped a lid on her thoughts? Should she have asked a different question? Can she make it through the Capitol's party knowing what she knows now? Does she know anything now? Will this doubt affect her, her speech, her performance?

She stays only a few minutes more, ensuring Cam is deep asleep, and slips from the room, heart thundering, hands shaking.

 _You wanted to do it, so you did._

 _You wouldn't have done it **so many times**. _

Massie spends the rest of the night memorizing her speech until she can give it backwards, forwards, and sideways. Until she can say the words without a shaky voice. Until the indifference is more truth than anything else she knows. When she gives this speech in front of everyone else, she will mean every word of it. She will pass every test. She will prove to Myner and the Capitol and the districts and everyone else watching that she did not do anything because she has _feelings_ for Derrick Harrington.

Because she does not.

She does not have feelings.

None.

Not for him.

And even if she does, they are negative ones, like… like annoyance, and irritation, and anger, and everything else that fits under that umbrella.

They pop in her head like a mantra. She holds them close, dispelling that small seed of uncertainty. Now is not the time to fall deeper into the uncertainty she's been slowly wading through. Not now, not ever.

Annoyance.

Irritation.

Anger.

Annoyance.

Irritation.

Anger.

Annoyance.

Irritation.

 _Attraction_.

 **...**

Massie's fingers twitch as she pulls the stack of letters closer to her.

Massie's fingers twitch as she runs them across the words on the papers. She can feel some of the emotion this boy was feeling as he wrote just by how hard he pressed his pen down.

Massie's fingers twitch as she reads them, combing through the notes with a fine-picked comb, Cam's voice running through her brain. Her _mother's_ voice running through her brain.

 _Listen._

 _Think about it, Massie._

Massie's fingers twitch as she reads them a second time, a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time—

 _Read between the lines._

 _Because it didn't._

 **...**

"Don't you want to know what I was thinking about that made me forget about my leg?"

"No."

"It was you. I was thinking about you, and how happy I am that you aren't dead. There was a cannon earlier, and—"

"That was the girl from Seven. I killed her because she didn't know where you were and she was useless to me."

"You… I thought—you were looking for me?"

"Obviously. You think I'd look for someone else?"

"Massie."

"Yes."

"Look at me."

"Oh."

"Why?"

"I don't want you to die."

" _Massie_."

His mouth is hot against hers, soft and familiar, even though she's never kissed it before. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and she knows this is from her fear of his death, though she is not sure why; death is her only truth here. The only thing that is real.

Her heart races wildly; her teeth dig into the plump flesh of his bottom lip; she is warm all over, wants her hands in his hair, on his face, on his chest. Wants to be close, close, close, wants him to touch, touch, touch—

 _Don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me_ , her mouth seems to say, just not using any words.

 _I won't_ , his promises back. _I love you I love you I love you._

She gasps, tinny and small and submissive, lets her hover over him, lets him flip them over, lets him run his tongue down her jaw, her neck. Lets his teeth bite her collarbone, lets him smack a loud kiss there, lets him claim her.

"Please," she begs, digging her fingers into this hair. Tugging tugging _tugging_. He groans, licking against the skin that meets the neck of her bodysuit. She feels him drag his teeth there, a tiny nip, and she swallows roughly, shivering.

"We can't," he mumbles, though his actions speak otherwise, "not here. Not when—"

"I don't care," she breathes, "please. _Please_ , Derrick—"

He growls at the way she says his name, breathless and pleading and full of want, but does not give her what she wishes for.

 **...**

Massie gasps, shooting straight up, her face flushed, her body _aching._

"Shit," she curses, pulling her blanket tight around her shoulders.

 _You wanted to do it, so you did._

It appears she wanted to do more than kiss him. Wanted it so much she didn't care that they were A) in a fight to the fucking _death_ , and B) being filmed at every angle.

"Shit, shit, _shit_."

 _Because it didn't._ Didn't what? _Mean nothing._

 **...**

Derrick, do you love me?

 **...**

The morning of the start of her Tour, Massie pours herself a cup of coffee, drops a spoonful of sugar into it, stirs stirs stirs.

Across from her, Cam is munching on a piece of toast. Her father skims the paper. They try to act as casual and calm as possible, but she knows they are as nervous as she is, though she refuses to admit it. If she does not say it out loud, she is nothing but relaxed, ready to lie to her entire country, ready to be someone she is now not sure she really is.

She watches them chew and drink, read and hum, and decides to wait until their mouths are full to say, "How long do you think the Capitol can suppress my memories for?"

Despite the meaning behind the question, despite the horrors and (no doubt) treason she committed to even have the doctors fuck with her mind the way they did, despite the unadulterated _fear_ she knows she should be feeling, seeing Cam and William choke is just as amusing as she hoped it would be.

 **...**

"So I didn't dream that?"

"Dream _what_?"

"I slipped into his bed and made him tell me why my kissing Derrick was such a big deal. I knew he wouldn't be able to get out of it because he'd be half-asleep."

"You did _what_?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't—I was _asleep_!"

"Evidently not!"

"She was bound to find out anyway," Cam snips, stabbing at his now cold breakfast. "Don't tell me you thought Myner _wouldn't_ test her at his mansion."

William clenches his jaw, says nothing.

" _No_ ," Cam laughs. "You thought she'd be fine? Dude, my connections tell me that—"

"Your connections could by lying," interrupts William, because, like Massie, when he doesn't want to know something, he doesn't want to know, and he will do everything he can to ensure he does not.

Cam's voice is a sensual sing-song when he replies, "They never lie to me. That's what makes them so beneficial."

"Yeah, yeah," William snaps, "the Capitol loves you. I get it."

"And they fear you," Cam returns. "It is a nice balancing act we have here."

There is a brief moment of silence, both men trying to dominate over the other as they glare, and Massie decides, despite her every nerve telling her to interject, to chew slowly on a piece of melon as it all unravels.

Her father concedes first, vein in his neck throbbing. "What do your _connections_ "—he says this word with no concealed hatred—"have to say about Massie's Tour?"

"He's been hinting at having her watch her Games if she messes up."

"Has he mentioned what he will consider a 'mess up'?"

"No," Cam admits. "He's kept that under lock and key, apparently, but it makes me want to go over her speech, just to be on the safe side—"

Massie rolls her eyes and says, "Why does it matter? I can watch my Games. That's fine."

"No, Massie." William glances at Cam. "You can't."

"What do you mean I can't?" she demands. "I've seen them before. I've _lived_ them before. There's nothing there that will make me second guess myself. It's just the letters."

"You're right," her father says to Cam. "You're right. It was the letters first. And then it would be the Games. A test, not only for her, but also for his medical staff—"

"That's not the only thing they've heard," Cam continues sheepishly, "but I am sure you can guess what it is."

William breathes deep, like he already knows, and cracks his knuckles. "One thing at a time, Cameron."

"You know I'd rather you call me Cam."

"One thing at a time, _son_ ," William snaps.

Cam flinches, the tone of voice the older man used having rattled him to his core. He drops his gaze quickly, watching his plate intently. He follows Massie's lead and furiously eats the fruits on his plate, refusing to look up until necessary. They don't call her father the King for nothing, she guesses; he can command even the two of them.

William eyes Cam for a second longer, a frown pulling at his mouth, and turns his disapproving gaze on Massie. "You are incorrect," he tells her, and he is trying so hard to act like an adult who has it all together, a parent who knows best, that Massie lets him talk down to her. "You haven't seen them before."

"What?" she asks. "Of course I have. I had a Recap and everything."

Cam tilts his head to look at her, still chewing, and frowns when Massie opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water. Before William can say anything else, he blurts, "What do you remember?"

"Most of it," she answers. "What happened to me, obviously, but not the whole thing in its entirety."

"Tell us," he orders, though it comes out as a suggestion—nice and open and encouraging.

"I'd really rather not." The memories flood her and she winces, her heart not quite prepared to become cozy with them once more. She knows she has to, but that's for a few weeks from now, when she starts from the bottom up, beginning her Tour in Twelve after this nonsensical kick-off party at Myner's mansion.

It also begs the question why she has these memories of Derrick that make her skin heat up and her core ache when he killed Kemp right there in front of her. For some reason, her body loves him—Derrick, not Kemp—but she knows, _knows_ with certainty, that he is an asshole, and a traitor, and he murdered the one person Massie did actually have legitimate feelings for.

Is it possible to be in love with the way a person kisses?

 _Is it possible_ , someone whispers in her mind, someone she thinks she knows but can't quite place, _that you're being lied to?_

Lied. She holds onto the word. Probes it. Defines it in every possible way she can.

Who could lie to her?

Who _would_ lie to her?

How could they confuse her like this?

 _Think about it_ , that same voice says.

Think about it? Think about _what_?

Despite her lack of understanding, her mind starts going down a winding path, a hunt, if you will, and when she thinks it has hit a light at the end of the tunnel, a memory that could change everything, she hits a roadblock. Whoever is leading the charge inside her slams against this partition, over and over, kicking and punching and trying to _break_ —

It doesn't work.

Massie flinches each and every time they try to tear that wall down, whoever they are—it's her, isn't it? It hurts, which is weird, mental things aren't supposed to physically hurt, are they? She thinks not. She thinks a lot, actually, and she's stuck trying to see what's been hidden from her so carefully, so strongly, that she doesn't realize the iron grip she has on her knife until her father starts to coax it from her hand.

Cam is peering at her strangely when she focuses back on the breakfast table, her back ramrod straight and her skin feeling oddly slimy. She drops the knife to the plate, pushes both away, and curls into as much of a ball as she can in her chair.

"What happened?" he asks.

"I don't know," Massie admits, voice muffled by her knees. "I don't know much of anything, it seems."

William asks her to share, if she's willing, and she's not, not really, but her mouth opens anyway. She tells them about the whole thing. Tells them what she remembers of her Games, tells them how she sees and feels things that don't make sense because they never happened to her, tells them about the flashes of tributes she sometimes glimpses in the corner of her eye, the corner of rooms, and she tells them about how easily she tires when she starts thinking. About her Games. About these letters. About herself. About _anything_.

Even now, explaining all this… she's exhausted and she knows she can't blame it on anything that happened last night. It's a different kind of tired she feels, like her brain's flipped a sign on its door that says _CLOSED FOR THE WINTER_ and she is just allowing it.

She doesn't see the panicked look Cam and William share.

She doesn't hear the whispers that normally irritate her.

She doesn't feel the hand Cam lays on hers.

She doesn't, doesn't, doesn't.

And when William breaks through the silence that seems to have crushed them for seconds, minutes, maybe hours, she doesn't acknowledge that, either. She's too busy drifting away, her brain locking the door, shutting the lights, and slipping out, taking a vacation when it shouldn't.

 **...**

The spray of the water is hot and harsh. It feels like it is burning right through Massie, droplets shooting through her skin, her veins, her muscles, her bones, like bullets. She kicks a foot out, startled, and doesn't like how her hands feel bound behind her, doesn't like this feeling of hard rope digging into her flesh, rubbing against her thumb. Maybe if she breaks it—

"Stop."

"Get it off," Massie screeches. "Get it off get it off get it off."

"There's nothing there."

"Of course there's something—"

She blinks at the hands that wrap themselves around hers, long, pale fingers that trace their way from her palms to her wrists to her elbows. She watches, and watches, and watches. These hands do this several times before her heart slows. _Cam_ does this several times before her heart slows.

Massie flicks her gaze up at him, still avoiding that blue eye, and breathes, long and measured, from her mouth.

"See?" he offers, still massaging her arms. "There's nothing there. You're okay."

She is not okay, actually. She's sopping wet, but so is he, and her hair is sticking to her, clinging to her neck like someone is… like someone—

Cam shoots forward and that scares her, too, just a bit, and her back slams against the side of the tub. He murmurs _sorry_ but doesn't move, pulling at her hair. The hair that wrapped itself around her throat, the hair that was starting to make her feel like she couldn't breathe.

He wraps it into a knot, the strands so heavy with water it stays without a tie. His hand is the same, lingering at her throat, fingers lighter than the palm that cradles the back of her neck. He is too close again, tooclosetooclosetooclose, but Massie presses her hand to his heart, listens to it beat, calm and steady, and then drops her forehead to his shoulder.

She has always liked him best. He is nice, and he cares, even though he's sometimes too flirty for his own good. Sometimes too touchy and unaware of boundaries until he is reminded. Sometimes sad, and haunted, but never letting it show more than in the lines of his face and the color in his eyes. She was surprised when he fought Fawn to be her mentor—if there are enough mentors, and there are in One, normally it is split by gender—but she is irrevocably grateful he saw something in her when she and Kemp were chosen last year. She doesn't imagine Fawn would sit with her in a shower after she's had a—what is this that she's had?

(Also, but not as important right now: where _is_ Fawn?)

Her voice is rough, like she hasn't used it for anything other than screaming when she asks, "Why am I in here?"

"You…" His breath is warm against the cold of her wet hair at her ear. "You went away for a bit, I guess. You were—tired."

She swallows. "Right. Did I… I told you, then, what I've been feeling?"

Cam is silent for a moment too long. She knows. He doesn't have to answer to tell her that _yes_ she's finally admitted to not being alright.

"You could have told me," is what he opts to say. He brushes soft, tiny touches along the skin of her throat. She shudders, the feeling somehow both comforting and yet entirely terrifying, trapping. He stops. "I don't… I _told_ you—you shouldn't have to go through that alone." There is a hitch in his breath, a stutter in his heartbeat that reads _not like I did_.

Massie presses her nose deeper into the fabric of his shirt. "Mentors aren't supposed to—"

"I'd like to think we're friends, Massie," Cam interjects. "But if you don't, mentoring doesn't stop until your Tour ends, so you're going to have to tell me if you're overwhelmed or tired or whatever it is you're feeling. You're going to have to be honest with me—"

"I'm sorry," she says, because she can hear the hurt surging through him, can feel the way he cringed away from the word _mentors_. She backtracks quickly, even though trying to save face here is making her tired again. She should tell him that soon. "I just… I never really had friends," she admits, and that sounds so dumb and sad for someone like her—someone charming and funny and _pretty_ , but it's the truth. "I think we're friends. I don't know why you'd want to be my friend, but… but if you do, that is okay with me."

"Good," returns Cam, "because like it or not, we've been friends since they chose you to volunteer."

Massie yawns. "That's a long time for me not to know I had a friend."

"Should I have sent you a gift in the arena that said ' _surprise we're friends!_ '?"

"Probably," Massie answers. "I listen a lot better under pressure."

"Massie—"

"Cam, I'm tired."

"Okay," he says. "You know you don't have a lot of time to rest, right? We have to leave for the Capitol in a few hours and your prep team will start their process here and finish it on the train."

Massie nods.

She feels Cam turn the water off, then hoist himself out of the tub. Her pajamas cling to her, so wet and uncomfortable, her socks full of water at the toes. He tells her to lift her arms and she does, and then she is being carried to her bedroom, where he hesitates in placing her on her bed.

"Doesn't matter," she mumbles. "Won't be using it for a while."

He drops her there, busies himself with making sure her hair doesn't settle on her neck, and then turns to leave after he's tucked her in, wrapping her in the blanket at the edge of her mattress.

She is on the brink of unconsciousness, has been this whole time really, but it's _right there_ , when she hears him talk to her father, probably at her doorway.

"She's going to mess up," Cam says softly. It sounds like he's screaming. Massie wills sleep to take her faster, but it pauses, like it's listening, too.

"Don't talk to me like that," William snips.

"I'm not talking to you like anything. I'm just stating a fact."

William sighs. "You sound like you're blaming me for this."

"You did ask for it," Cam replies, voice neutral, "did you not?"

"I asked for her to be spared."

"You asked for alterations," bites back Cam. "And alterations you got. But at what cost, Will? Is this _worth it_?"

"She's not dead, so of course it is." Her father is struggling to keep his voice low.

 _Please please please_ , Massie begs Sleep.

It stays where it is.

Stays where it is and orders, _Listen_.

"She's not dead, but she's like this," Cam articulates. "And she's kept it from both of us, so we don't know how long she's been walking around like half a fucking person."

"Probably the whole time," William offers. "If not then, then after she started reading and believing the letters. I believe they may have kept some sort of affection for the boy in her so she would be walking two roads at the same time. Confusion and power plays are what keep the Capitol running."

"Did you know this would happen?" Cam inquires. "When you suggested it, did you know they'd turn her to this?"

"If you are implying I am working with Cole to destroy my daughter, Cameron—"

"You work with _Cole_ "—Cam spits the name like it's something dirty—"an awful lot. Pardon me for merely _asking_."

She hears William's swallow as if he were standing over her; it's that loud. That pained. "Come on," he says, "have a drink with me. There's a lot you need to know before we get to the Capitol."

"Like?"

"I'm going to need whiskey before we get into it," William mutters.

"Ah," Cam replies. "It's _that_ kind of talk."

"You have no idea."

"Should we prep Massie's Games for her to review?"

Her bedroom door whines as it closes. Massie strains her ears to hear the end of the conversation.

"No," William answers sadly. "She will have to watch them with Cole."

"She will fail even more if she does," Cam argues. "You can't just _let_ —"

"I have to," William interrupts, "or else it will ruin everything."

Their footsteps recede, climb down the stairs, and it is silent once more. Massie thinks she hears cabinets opening and closing, but the kitchen is too far away for that, so she must imagine it.

 _Do you understand?_ Sleep asks her.

 _No,_ she thinks.

A soft caress allows her brain to turn off again, a darkness starting to settle in her bones. _Don't worry_ , is the last thing Sleep says, _you will soon._

When she succumbs to it in its entirety, consciousness leaving her and her mind creating dreams full of her mother, she knows who was trying to talk to her this entire time.

Kendra says to her, "Do not blame him. He was trying to protect you the only way he knew how."

"Mom," Massie chokes out, "am I the reason you're dead?"

There are fingers in her hair, brushing strands away from her face. "It was a long time coming," her mother answers. "When you go to the Capitol, I need you to be strong."

"I was never as strong as you," Massie tells her. She feels the overwhelming urge to cry and doesn't understand. "And I'm so tired."

"They will make sure you are awake the whole time," Kendra says. "And you are strong, my darling. Stronger than you think you are. Do not give an inch. Even if it hurts, even if it shocks you—face neutral, eyes blank, voice unwavering. You are more than a Block, you are _my_ daughter."

"Yes," Massie whispers. "I am."

"We do not break, you and I," Kendra continues. "We do not bend."

Massie repeats her words like a mantra.

Kendra smiles sadly, eyes greedily taking in Massie's features: her nose, her cheeks, the dark brown of her hair, the different shades of color in her gaze. "I wish I had been given the opportunity to love you properly. I wish—"

Massie squeezes her mother's hand. "You can say it. You follow no rules now."

"Oh, honey." Kendra sniffs. "I can't, because I don't believe it. Not truly."

"Why not?"

"Because if I wished for no Games, I'd also be wishing for no you," Kendra answers. "As awful as they are, I would never get rid of something that led me to my greatest treasure." Her arms are warm around Massie, and she smells like she always did—the high-end perfume Massie knows she will demand Jakkob cover her in for her party later. "Know something, Massie."

"What is it?"

"We love you," Kendra murmurs. "Both of us. In our own ways. We are not bad people. This world has shaped us into people we would not normally be. I'm sure there is another world where we are nothing but boring, embarrassing parents you can't stand." She cups Massie's face in her palms, amber eyes meeting amber eyes. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

It's a far fetched idea, but Massie thinks she might like it. Wonders what it'd be like. She nods.

Kendra presses a kiss to her nose, like she used to when she was small, and says, "This world needs to _burn_ , so that one can rise from its ashes."

Massie feels the pressure of that kiss for the rest of the day, even as the dream fades into nothing but an itch in the back of her mind.


	9. Part Nine: Focus

**_I hope I did this justice. It was one of the harder ones to write and then edit because I have so thoroughly destroyed Massie and I'm trying to put her back together. I hope I expressed her confusion well, so if you are confused or uneasy as you read this, that is the point._**

 ** _Derrick is here, though, and we love him, so hopefully that makes up for his previous absence._**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
_ _Part Nine_

* * *

 **focus |** **ˈfōkəs  
** verb  
 _pay particular attention to  
_ synonyms: concentrate, fix, center, pinpoint, zero in, zoom in

* * *

It's not hard to get Massie ready for the Capitol.

She can toot her own horn as much as she wants, can be called conceited and full of herself, but it's not wrong if it's _true_. She's pretty. She's well-fed. She has ample opportunities to gorge, to exercise, to pick and choose when and what she wants to eat. She knows other districts are not given the same privileges, but she does not live there and so she does not care. Not really.

Mainly this just means Jakkob doesn't have to spend hours on her appearance. Massie cares about that. Has to, in a district like One, where beautiful things are coveted. So she is only wakened from her sleep an hour before she has to board the train to the Capitol. She can even doze, though her mind is more tired than her body, while she is worked on.

She feels Jakkob pulling at her hair, feels the applying of blush to her cheeks, feels the brush of lipstick to her mouth.

Twenty minutes in, Cam enters, hands shoved in his pockets. His cheeks are pink, and his face is pale—paler than usual—and his pupils are blown: all signs of him drinking much more than he should have. Massie knows William must look no better, because it's not like Cam would drink alone. And even if he planned to, her father would have joined, because that is the kind of thing they do together.

That, and she remembers the end of their conversation as she fell asleep earlier.

 _Have a drink with me. There's a lot you need to know before we get to the Capitol._

So the look on his face is not so much the look of a person who'd had two glasses of whiskey too many. It's the look of that, but more: it's the look of a person who's heard too much, who knows too much. It's the look of a person who now knows someone else's secrets.

Massie averts her gaze, closes her eyes when prompted, and says, "Hello."

"Hey," he says, and she can tell he's trying too hard. "How are you feeling?"

"A little tired," she tells him. He wants to hear this, she remembers, even though it pains her to admit the tiniest weakness. "But I'll be fine. Just have to wake up a bit more."

"We can," Cam starts, a little shaken, though she can't imagine why. He's not the one with a slight hold on his mind. "We can make sure you don't have that issue later, if you'll let us."

Massie flutters an eye open, ruining an impeccably made lid, and looks him head-on. "How?"

"Your dad has…" Cam clears his throat. "He has trackerjacker honey, if you'd like it. We understand if you don't. Most people don't like it, but it's kind of a… it's _desired_ in the Capitol, if you will, so no one will be appalled if you're on it, and it's known to keep the mind in focus—"

"Focus on one thing," Massie interjects. "Sometimes that one thing is not what you want to be focusing on, though."

Cam blanches. Or he would, if it were possible for him to do so. He's already white as a sheet, fingers tap-tap-tapping away on the arm of the chair he's sitting in. "We'll make sure you focus on what's important," he promises.

She doesn't respond to that, merely shuts her eyes again, and asks, "How are _you_ doing?"

"Fine." The word sounds strangled. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem troubled," she murmurs.

She doesn't see it, but he runs a pained hand through his hair. His gaze darts from her to the wall and back. He swallows. "I am, I guess," he admits. "I just—it's important you know that when we get to the Capitol, you won't really recognize me."

"And why is that?"

They're coloring her brows now. Making them darker, more pronounced. She thinks she hears them mentioning something about jewels. She really hopes not. Every one of her looks has incorporated them and she's kind of sick of it.

"I'm different there," Cam says. "We all are. The Victors. We have to be what they want us to be, what they expect. What they… what they've paid for."

Massie sniffs. "And I'm guessing they haven't paid for the version of you I know, then?"

There is a pause, and then, "No. They rarely pay for who you really are."

"Who are you, that they've paid for?"

Cam answers, "You'll see," after too long a silence.

She reads between the lines: _I don't want you to._

"Are you worried?" she questions, dropping the subject. A brush presses to the side of her face, along her cheekbone, and she wonders what it's doing there. "About me, I mean, and my… about me."

"A little, yes," Cam says. "Not that I'm worried you can't handle yourself, because you _can_ , but because I do not think the Capitol can handle you."

She wonders if that means she is too easily angered, too easily riled. If she is too fragile, too breakable. Too… _temperamental_.

The design they are a painting into her skin swirls up to her temple; something is glued to the lines there, probably the diamonds and sapphires and rubies she's grown accustomed to.

She flutters her lashes, hoping she doesn't ruin whatever Jakkob and his team have painstakingly drawn there, and catches the tension and agony in Cam's face, his eyes, his shoulders.

Even though her body screams against her, even though her mind says _no no no NO_ , even though it is against everything she's ever known, ever _been_ , Massie announces, "When I'm done here, I'll take the honey. If you'll help me focus on what I'm supposed to focus on."

Fleeting memories of trackerjacker venom and blood and gleaming tridents and sharp axe blades send a tremor of terror down her spine, but she breathes through them, pressing her palms to her thighs. She will take this if it means it will put everyone, herself included, a bit more at ease.

And it does. Though it does not do it for her.

Cam deflates, like all the air has been released from him, and he slumps against the chair. He still seems worried, but she chalks it up to him being a good mentor. Sorry, a good _friend_. He pulls a smile from somewhere deep down, meeting her gaze. "Of course," he replies. "I'll make sure you're perfectly safe."

She trusts he will, but she's not sure how capable she is... which is probably not the first step she should be taking. She breathes again, centers herself, and wills a sense of calm through her veins.

It lasts through the day. The question, though, is if it will last the night. If it is strong enough to survive once the trackerjacker venom takes over her body.

 **...**

The look, when her team is done: Skin paler than she actually is, lips matte purple. Her eyeliner is stunning, black and long, wings sharp, sharp, sharp, like they can break skin if used as a weapon. From the outer corner of her eye to her temple, the liner continues, pearls and emeralds glued to her skin in a pattern that makes her seem more serpentine than human. It shimmers. It threatens. It could kill. Maybe that's the point.

Her dress is white, sheer and short, with a mock neckline and willow bell sleeves. It is cute, with its lace trim and cutouts around the waist, and it fits her. Not in the way that it hugs her body and leaves nothing to the imagination, which it does, but in the way that she knows _before-_ Massie would wear it. She is almost certain there is something like this gathering dust in her closet. She is even more certain she will come back from her Tour and throw it away.

 **...**

Her father mixes the trackerjacker honey with peanut butter and makes her a sandwich. He even cuts it into eighths to make sure she doesn't mess up her makeup.

Bit by bit, Massie consumes it. It is as sweet as normal honey is, if not a bit more, and Massie has a hard time finishing the whole thing. Her teeth seem to have a layer of sugar along them that no amount of water or milk can remove.

Cam does not let go of her hand, does not let her look away from him—not the entire time she is at home, not the walk to the train, not the ride to the Capitol. He tells her over and over how she should act, what she should do, words she should say.

Polite. Charming. Accommodating.

Dance when asked to dance. Laugh when the opportunity arises. Smile, smile, smile.

Men will touch more than they are supposed to. Women will ask for secrets. Let the men do what they want. Give the women nothing. If she gets too uncomfortable, there are ways to excuse herself: say she needs the restroom, go for a refill, find a face she knows. There will be other Victors at this party; she may have never met them, but they are on the lookout for a startled newcomer who may be in need of saving.

Remember these names: Alicia Rivera, Todd Lyons, Josh Hotz.

Say them back to me, Massie.

Alicia Rivera, Todd Lyons, Josh Hotz.

Fawn will be there. Avoid her. She does not have your best interests at heart.

If you see me, ignore me. I am not who you think I am there. I am not—I am your friend, but I have other business to attend to. Remember—

Alicia Rivera, Todd Lyons, Josh Hotz. I know.

Good.

How do you feel?

I'm okay. Wait. No. I'm not. Cam, what's—

Shh. Shh. _Breathe_.

Massie doesn't think she can. Her throat is clogged, her nose is stuffed, her chest is down for the count. She feels all of her ribs, every single one, and her heart beats too hard for her to calm it down. It wants to break them all, one by one, until her insides are a bloody, messy pulp.

And when she blinks down at her hands, at her wrists, at the sleeves of her dress, she sees that it is not just her chest that is a bloody, messy pulp, but the rest of her, too. She lets out a strangled sound, digs her nails into her palms, tiny half-moons that actually _do_ break skin, even though she's certain she's already covered in the sticky liquid—

Cam.

Cam.

 _Cam_.

It's not real. You're not hurt. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not. Cam, I'm not.

Look. Look at me. Look at my hands. Look at yours.

Massie does. She sees his face, brows furrowed, mouth a thin line, eyes duller than she's ever known them, colored with concern. His fingers are wrapped around hers, pale pale pale, just skin and bone, and so are hers, twisted around his, a bit darker. She looks, she looks, she looks—and then she knows. This is true, this is real, this is what is _right_. There is no blood, there is no pain. There is just what is in her head, and what is in her head, she knows, _cannot_ be this.

Okay.

What do you see?

Nothing. Just hands.

Good. Focus on that. Focus on normality. Focus on—

My Games, my winning, on being annoyed that I am not the only Victor.

What else?

Being nice. Being polite, and charming, and accommodating, and smiling, and laughing, and dancing when I am supposed to.

Yes.

The terror recedes, hides away, though Massie knows, somewhere deep in her, she is afraid of forgetting one of those things. Of—doing wrong, somehow, and President Myner finding out. But he's not just the president, is he? He's her godfather, too, not that it matters, because he'll hurt her like he seems to hurt everyone else—

Stop. Massie, _stop_.

Stop what?

That is not the road you want to go down. Not tonight. Not like this. Stop thinking like that. You'll be fine.

How do you know what I'm thinking?

I know you.

And what am I thinking?

You know you're not supposed to focus on it. I'm not going to humor you tonight. Tell me something else. Anything else.

Like what?

Something you know from your Games.

 _Soft, like she's unsure she should bring it up_ : What if I'm wrong about it?

You won't be.

And so Massie tells him, and she is so frazzled, so overcome with the honey and her fears that she is unaware she is telling him two different versions of the same Games, is unaware that somewhere along the line, she's started living two lives.

Real Massie and Capitol-made Massie are fighting for dominance within her. They have been this whole time, but tonight feels like it is do or die. Tonight feels... it feels final, and that adds to her anxiety. To her confusion. She feels that, can't place a name to it, and continues speaking.

Cam merely nods, listens. He does not correct her. He merely emphasizes the parts she needs to know to survive the night, even though she doesn't know he's doing so. She lets him reinforce these memories. Lets him coax her back into a serene state of mind, keeping the frenzy of the trackerjacker venom from causing too much stress and panic, from manifesting into its most terrifying form of hallucinations.

Better?

Yes.

Tell me about your Games again.

Massie does.

It is the same as before.

For the two hours it takes to get to the Capitol, Cam talks to Massie about her time in the arena. He slips in and twists memories, has her focusing on things that will make her indifferent and angry at her co-Victor. She stumbles a few times, tells him things like _I trusted him_ and _I really couldn't have killed him_ , but he takes those and expels them from her mind. She doesn't know it makes him feel guilty and dirty, and it shouldn't, not really. Trying to help her survive a night and a man that's truly out to get her should not make him feel any type of way.

Before they enter the presidential mansion, he asks _How do you feel_? It is not about her wellbeing, not about her actual feelings about being there, but about—

 _Annoyed_ , she says. _Annoyed that I have to share this with someone else._

Cam closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, they have a certain gleam to them that is not normal for the man she knows, but she is hardly in a state of mind to be that concerned about it. He murmurs _Good_ and presses his mouth to her forehead, an action she has become more and more accustomed to in the past few weeks.

He takes her hand, squeezes it, drops it. Takes it again.

They enter the mansion in solidarity.

That lasts mere moments: As soon as they cross the threshold, entering the foyer, they are ripped violently apart, and Massie is left with the ghost of Cam's hand in her own.

He winks at her, pulled deeper into the thrall by someone in a shimmering gold dress and purple flowers tattooed down the right side of her face. Massie's arm is now clutched by a deeply tanned woman, red dress clinging to her like a second skin, long dark hair curled and pulled into an updo. She doesn't even introduce herself.

Massie avoids flinching, avoids shaking at the unfamiliar touch, and wishes Cam never left her. Wishes he never had to be someone he is not, especially when she needs him to be someone he is.

Even more so—stronger, more uncomfortable, wrong, wrong, _wrong_ —she wishes Derrick were here, at her side. He'd know what to do. What to say. She seems unable to do either.

This makes her sick.

 **...**

Or maybe that is just the fact that she's eaten nothing but that sandwich and some fruit today.

 **...**

Thankfully her kidnapper has the common sense to get her to a bathroom before she can vomit all over their shoes.

 **...**

The gods are smiling down on her apparently.

Her kidnapper is named Alicia Rivera.

Alicia Rivera is one of the people Massie must remember.

Alicia Rivera is on her side.

 **...**

"Oh my _god_ , are you _done_ yet?"

Alicia Rivera, as it seems, is also incredibly _mean_.

 **...**

Massie is, in fact, not done yet.

 **...**

"They're going to notice you're not there," Alicia advises.

"It's _my_ party," Massie retorts between bouts of dry heaving. "I can make a goddamn entrance."

"Yeah, because this is an image they want." Alicia scoffs. "A crazy girl covered in tears and her own vomit. Happy Victory Tour!"

Massie shoots a glare at her, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. It comes back purple, covered in saliva. She'd forgotten about her lipstick. Forgotten about all of her makeup, to be honest. She must look a wreck. "I'm not crazy," she snaps.

"Sure." Alicia swings her legs from where she sits on the sink. "That's definitely what they will _not_ think when you walk in there like this."

Massie groans, pressing her forehead to the porcelain. "Why are you even here if you're not going to be helpful?"

"I'm supposed to be helpful _during_ the party," Alicia replies. "This is not that." She purses her lips, frowning at Massie's disheveled form. "But you're so pitiful and _sad_ -looking that I'll help you before that."

"Wow," Massie mumbles, deadpan. "Thanks so much."

"Welcome!" Alicia chirps.

Massie coughs over the toilet though nothing comes out. She gags and gags, throat burning, stomach contracting, hands gripping the seat. She pulls in a deep breath, insides churning over the stench of her own vomit—remnants of a sandwich and strawberries and is that coffee?—and pushes herself away. All she wants to do is lay on the cold floor until she's better. It feels like the room is spinning.

Alicia stands over her, stunningly pretty in the harsh, fluorescent light. "Are you done now?"

"I want to go home," she says, even though she doesn't know what home is to her. She doesn't want to go back to her house in One, that's for sure, but she doesn't want to be here either.

"No can do, sweet pea." Alicia even looks a bit sad for her, but that can't be right. "Come on, get up. Let me see what I can do about your face."

"Is it bad?"

"No," Alicia answers, grabbing Massie's hands and lifting. "Your stylist either uses incredible setting spray or he was prepared for something like this. It's just your lipstick really. I don't have that color, but I think I have something that works just as well."

Massie lets this stranger fix her makeup, focusing on her blinking and her breathing.

When she blinks, everything is blurry. When she breathes, she is overcome with nausea.

When she blinks, everything is upside down. When she breathes, she chokes on seemingly nothing.

When she blinks, everything is duplicated. When she breathes, she feels her heart sputter to a stop and then start again, like a race car.

"In through the nose, out through the mouth," Alicia says softly. She dabs a pinky-red color to Massie's lips after rubbing off the remainder of the purple. "I used to do TJ. I know what it's like. Let me know if you start seeing things, okay?"

Massie nods.

Alicia blends Massie's foundation back into her skin, rubs powder to cover it, and adds a pop of color to her pale cheeks with a blush that Massie is too proud to tell Alicia reminds her of blood. When she's done, Massie looks like a person again.

"Alright." The other girl holds out her hand. "Ready to go?"

Massie frowns at the proffered palm, the skin lightening just a tad. It's still tanned, but it's bigger now, fingers longer, thicker, covered in calluses. The arm it is attached to is wrapped with corded muscle, a jacket sleeve pushed up to the elbow. Massie's gaze follows the black fabric to the shoulder and then up the neck to the face, where she sees—

She stumbles back, almost tripping over her heels. That hand grabs hers, holds tight, keeps her upright, and Derrick's mouth—because that's who she sees—moves to form the syllables of her name—

"What is it?" Alicia asks. "Massie, what do you see?"

"Nothing," Massie says. "I don't see anything."

But she can't get Derrick's face out of her mind, can't look at Alicia right now without seeing him. Wants the girl's hand out of hers because she feels Derrick's, and she _shouldn't_.

She shouldn't be seeing him. Shouldn't be having any thoughts like this whatsoever. The point of the honey was to keep her focused on her task at hand: pleasing Myner, making it through this party, being the Victor everyone wants her to be. Being the Victor she _should_ be. Derrick does not fit in that equation—maybe a mean Derrick, a vicious Derrick, but not the one she blinked into existence a moment ago. Not the one she fell in love with under a simulated sky, surrounded by bodies they felled together.

No, she is not the Victor she needs to be. She's the Victor that's managed to take four steps into the mansion and vomit in the bathroom for what felt like several hours.

Really fucking excellent.

Just what she needs.

"Stop looking at me like that," Massie says, ruder than she anticipated. "Let's go."

Alicia looks at her—like really looks at her, squinting into her _soul_ —and doesn't seem too perturbed by Massie's tone or sudden one-eighty. "You'll be okay," she tells her. "I was scared to be here, too, when I won."

"I'm not _scared_ ," Massie retorts. _Lie_. "I have an—"

"Appearance to maintain?" Alicia suggests. "We all do. I understand."

"You _don't_ ," Massie insists. "There is more on the line for me than there was you. I am one of _two_ —"

"Funnily enough I know who you are, Massie Block," Alicia interrupts again. "And I also know what's at stake. Do not dismiss the people who want to help you." She grips Massie's hand again, just a bit too tightly, and smiles, thin and severe. "A bit of advice, too, before you meet anyone else: never imply you have it worse off than another Victor. You know nothing of winning."

Massie feels another wave of nausea crash over her as Alicia shoves the bathroom door open. The sounds of people mingling in rooms beyond them... it is more like the screaming she remembers from the arena. The cannons. It is not the laughter and animated chatting she knows it to be. She can't find it. Needs to take a moment to compose herself to hear it again, to expel the pained screeches of the other tributes. Of _her_ victims.

"I think I may know one thing about it," she mumbles.

"Maybe just one," Alicia agrees, watching her, and then they are in the thick of it all.

 **...**

Massie hates it immediately.

 **...**

She meets Vice President Robbins, a man with eyes too blue to be real. He shakes her hand, tells her how _darling_ she is, and she feels his gaze as she walks away, settling on the dip in her back.

She accepts a champagne flute from some chatty woman dripping in diamonds. She tells her things Massie doesn't care for, tells her things Massie _does_ —but she can't remember them, has no capacity to remember them—and when Massie is pulled away to meet someone else, the woman recites her son's phone number and address, hoping Massie will deign to meet with him. Massie does not even bother to pretend she will.

She catches a glimpse of her father, at Myner's side. They are talking, but Myner is watching her intently, like he cannot wait to see her mess up. It makes zero sense how he is not only friends with her father, but supposedly someone who cares about her. She doesn't allow herself to dwell on it, though, because that's not a thought Cam told her to focus on. It is still, unfortunately, rather unsettling.

That feeling wraps itself around her heart and squeezes, burrows into her and finds a home.

It multiplies, increases, strengthens when she spots Cam, and what she sees makes her so upset she's certain she's going to start screaming, but she doesn't. She averts her gaze, trying to scrub her memory clean, but it is still there. Her hands shake. She balls them into fists.

She accepts another champagne flute.

And then another.

And another.

She is about to take another when—

She is dizzy when she dances with Head Peacekeeper Davis, who grabs her ass and presses their hips together so tightly it makes Massie gnash her teeth together. Her mouth vibrates with the force, teeth slipping and sliding until she bites down hard on her bottom lip. Copper blossoms on her tongue. She gasps, mouth stinging.

Davis's face looms over hers, interested in the tiny sound she made, and she wants him to move move move, but he doesn't, and he morphs into Skye Hamilton from District Two, who sneers nastily at her, eyes gleaming with the desire to hurt her. It doesn't make sense, it's not supposed to, she guesses, and Skye says _you don't even smile_. Does Skye want her to smile? Should she smile? Cam said she should always be smiling why isn't she smiling why are Skye's hands on her like this and why are they going lower and wait this isn't Skye no it is the Head Peacekeeper and he is trying to slide beneath her dress in front of everyone make it stop why won't it stop why won't she talk she can't open her mouth oh my god oh no this isn't something she is supposed to allow it's not in the rules where is Cam where is Alicia where are the people she's supposed to look out for—

On their own accord, Massie's palms press against the man's chest, against the rough feel of his shirt. They travel up, slowly, tantalizingly, like she's enjoying this, like she wants it, but she's zeroing in on Davis's neck. Her vision is red, her body is trembling, his hands are where they should not be, and hers are about to wrap around his throat and _squeeze_.

No no no no no no no no no now there is another set of hands around her, gripping her waist no no no no no no no no let go no no no no no everyone let go everyone let go everyone let go _please please please_ but wait these hands are—are pulling her backwards? Away? Against a chest? She doesn't want to be against it please don't make her be against it now she's not that's nice thank you.

She hears a snarled _I believe that's enough_ and then she is being gently led away from the dance floor, past the buffet tables, and through the swinging double doors. It is only when she is outside, in the gardens, that she can breathe again, that she can _see_ again.

And the first thing she sees: Derrick Harrington's fingers against the inside of her elbow.

And the first thing she does: Punch him straight in the face.

 **...**

Or she tries.

 **...**

Derrick Harrington's hand is faster than her fist. He catches it, fingers warm and callused like she remembered earlier, why did she remember them earlier, and he squeezes her right there and at her hip, where his other hand is. How had she never noticed that? How long has it been? Where is she?

"You cut your hair," Derrick Harrington murmurs. His eyes look over her hungrily, like she is something he wants to eat. No. Like she is something he wants to remember. There are two different kinds of hunger, Massie realizes.

She doesn't have a good enough response, just, "It was getting too long." And that is true. She hated it on that train, the way it laid on her back, pressed against her neck. The way it suffocated her. But seeing the way he looks at her, feeling his hand that travels from her stomach to her neck… she wonders if she should have kept it.

Then she remembers he has no say over her. He is nothing.

Nothing—

Nothing but the most beautiful person she's ever seen, and Massie has spent the past several months living with Cam Fisher.

Derrick tousles her hair and for one brief moment she is worried Jakkob's immaculate bun will be ruined. "It looks nice like this," he says. "But I liked it before, too."

Suddenly she wishes her hair were long again, just so he can tangle his fingers through it. Just so he can _pull—_

Massie clears her throat very suddenly and peers up at him again. She is confused by what she knows and what she's seeing. She isn't supposed to like him, right? Why does she?

"Thank you," she croaks. It's the best she can do.

His eyes twinkle. They remind her of the stars hovering above them, shimmering, shining, beautiful, and she swallows roughly, wishing he'd let go of her. She needs to be away, away, away. She wants to be close, close, close. What should she do?

This is not good. Not good not good not good. She needs to remember. _Remember._

It hits her, right then: He tried to kill her.

He killed Kemp. He killed Landon. He killed Skye. He killed Ripple.

All of this makes sense. It does. Don't ask her to explain though. She doesn't think she can. She just knows he did some of these things, but not one. But which one? Which one didn't he do? _Kill Ripple_. He didn't kill Ripple. She knows this, Cam told her, and Cam doesn't lie, but she is still confused. Who didn't he kill? Who didn't he kill—

(Kemp. Skye. Ripple.)

(He didn't kill Kemp, Skye, or Ripple.)

(Massie, he didn't kill Kemp, Skye, or Ripple.)

(Who did?)

(You did.)

(I didn't kill Ripple.)

(No, but you killed Kemp and Skye.)

(No. No, I didn't.)

(Massie, you _did_.)

"Massie," he says, and he says it like a prayer.

Her heart starts, stutters, stops. She sees what they want her to see: a murderer, someone who took Kemp from her, who was important, who mattered. Someone who killed people left and right to make sure he made it to the very end, and Massie… Massie sees it all, sees it, and she—

Isn't that what the Games are about? No matter who you are, if you're cocky and confident, if you're scared and small, if you're big and brash… every year they throw you in an arena and tell you to kill, a reminder that children were dying years ago due to the mistakes of their adults, of their parents, of their government… and every year, only one comes out, and it doesn't matter if you're cocky and confident, if you're scared and small, if you're big and brash. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

It escapes her suddenly.

It escapes, that curtain over her memories, the things she knows and the things she doesn't. She sees him, standing right there, and she sees him again, standing in the arena. She sees blood, and bone, and death, and she sees a boy who has not created any of that. She sees—she sees _herself._

He is there, too, of course. He is always there, as a tribute in the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games, and he is always there in her mind, as an enemy, as someone she should defeat, as, as, as, as—

Massie Block killed seven people in the arena. She killed the girl from Twelve, the boy from Twelve, the girl from Seven, the girl from Two, the girl from Six, the girl from Five, the boy from One.

Derrick Harrington killed six people in the arena. He killed the boy from Ten, the girl from Nine, the boy from Nine, the boy from Two, the boy from Six, the boy from Eleven.

They are the scariest tributes anyone has seen. Apart they are basic, like any other kid in the arena—six and seven kills are nothing, not when there are people like Cam Fisher, and William Block, and Nathan Biggs, and Kristen Gregory, and Dylan Marvil out there—but together… together, because that is where Massie and Derrick should be—together, they are frightening and threatening and _murderous_.

Together…

Together…

Together…

Together, Massie and Derrick would do whatever it takes.

Together, they mattered more.

Together—

All she wanted to give Kemp the glory he deserved.

All she wanted to prove them all wrong.

All she wanted, all she _wants_ , is standing right in front of her.

"Derrick," she replies, and she is shaking his fingers from her, but he won't let her, tightening his grip. And it doesn't matter that his own hands are against his face, that she is stumbling back against a bench, that he is hovering over her, knees digging into the wood at either side of her thighs.

His nose brushes hers. Their intertwined hands are right there, pressed against him, pressed against her, and he says—he says—he says, "Fuck, I missed you so much," and Massie is—

Massie is condemning herself to something she knows will only ruin her in the end, but his mouth is worth it, if she remembers it correctly.

She doesn't respond, just presses her lips to his, and the fire in her stomach builds and builds and builds, overtakes her, sets her aflame, burns her skin and creates a new one. A new one that has her gasping, biting down on his lower lip, taking her hands as her own, running them through his hair, flipping them, straddling him, slanting her mouth _just so_ —

His fingers brand themselves into her hips.

She hadn't realized he'd shoved her dress up so much to dig into her skin, his fingerprints burning burning burning.

She hadn't realized that she started crying, either.

He kisses those away, her tears, pulling away to hold her face in his hands.

"No," she exclaims.

"There's time," he promises.

Massie stares at him, devours him, like he does her, and she sniffles. He is the same, but different: gold is threaded through his hair, green eclipses the brown in his eyes, bronze is spread through his skin when he doesn't need it. He is so pretty, so stunningly attractive that it makes her mouth dry quickly. Efficiently.

This is not the boy she knew before though. None of this was part of him. He had hair the color of the sun, eyes the color of caramel, and skin the kind of color that only comes from spending a lot of time outdoors. He'd been perfect then, but he is more so now, and Massie loves it, loves him, but—

She presses her mouth to his again, the one thing they couldn't change the feel of, even if they can change how he kisses. It's hard to explain, even as she is doing it, even as she is changing her course of action to match his more dominant one. She is aware there have been other people he's kissed, other people he's touched, even without anyone telling her. He's amazing, and he's perfect, and he has had months of pleasing his sponsors, and Massie knows, suddenly, with utmost clarity, that the way he's had to pay them back is different from that of other Victors.

She remembers that one letter.

She'd crushed it in her fist, annoyed by him not knowing he had to give back to the people who spent so much money on him.

She thinks, now, that maybe she was annoyed because she knew what he'd have to do, being as beautiful as he is.

She wonders, very idly, as he presses his mouth along her jaw, if she will have to do the same.

The way he looks at her, like he's never seen anything as perfect, as beautiful, as _right_ , as she is… She knows she won't. Knows it deep down in her gut, knows it in her hands that grip him, in the teeth that pull at his lower lip, in the sigh that escapes her, in the words she should not utter.

She utters them anyway, because there is something in the back of her mind that says she may never be able to say them again.

He stills, stiffens, starts, big hands running down her body, and she is pressed against him. "I love you too," he breathes against the column of her throat. He nips at the underside of her jaw, sucks on the skin there, leaves a bruise.

Massie wants to tell him no, don't do that, don't make it seem like I'm not available, but she can't form the words. She merely pulls his face to hers, takes his mouth with her own, sighs raggedly—

 **...**

And strangles him.

 **...**

She doesn't know how it happens, just that it does.

One moment she's overcome with the desire to tear his clothes off, kissing him as hard as she possibly can. She's trying to move enough that he figures out where she wants his hands ( _hint_ : not at her hips, not on her waist), shifting and twitching and pulling, trying to mold him into her, make them one, make him hers.

The next she's holding his neck and she's _squeezing._

It is so sudden, so distinct; two feelings of similar strength coming head to head. She actually, physically, feels herself gasp, or maybe that's him, she doesn't know, and—

Derrick jerks, knee hitting the back of her thigh, takes her wrists, and pulls. Her nails dig into his skin as he wrenches her off of him, unceremoniously dropping her to the ground.

She hates him, and the way he's towering over her like this, like he's better than her, and he bends down, is about to finish what he started in the arena—

But he merely mumbles, "Sorry," and helps her up.

 _Tries_ to help her up, actually.

She refuses to take his hand, glaring up at him. He swallows, confused. Massie reads all that and more in the set of his jaw. What, is he upset she's not more hurt by the shove? _Please_.

She can't believe she's momentarily lost her sanity and _kissed_ him. Though it was nice, she admits. He's very skilled with his tongue.

She presses her palms to the ground, pushes herself up, and momentarily laments the grass stains that are no doubt all over her backside. The pains of wearing white. "Don't," she replies.

"I didn't—I wasn't expecting—"

Massie rolls her eyes. "Are you always this inarticulate?"

"Um." Derrick swallows uncomfortably again, toeing the grass with his shoe. "No? I mean. No. Only when you're around, I guess."

"Why?"

His hand twitches like he wants to reach out for her. "You're pretty," he says. "I find I can't—"

"Don't you dare say you can't talk around pretty girls." Massie scoffs. "It's not that hard."

Derrick shrugs, the furrow in his brows growing more and more pronounced. "I can talk around plenty of pretty girls," he replies, "but I find it harder to talk around you."

She searches his face for any sign of insincerity, for any… lie, she guesses. There is none. He is as open as a book, feelings and thoughts written across the planes of his face, and Massie reads them.

Reads them, and reads in between the lines.

He is looking at her the same way he's always looked at her. She knows he's always looked at her like she's something straight out of his dreams, but she doesn't know _why._ Doesn't have proof that this is true. Just has what is starting to settle in the pit of her stomach. Just the horror that is overtaking the anger she feels, the guilt that she even tried to hurt him.

 _You do know, Massie. You do know._

No, I don't.

 _Yes, you do. Fight it._

Fight what?

(She should have never taken the honey. This is exhausting.

 _Don't blame that. You know why you're so tired. Open your eyes._ )

"Massie," he starts, pleads, _begs._ Like he is trying to appeal to her.

She forces herself to meet his gaze. It is overpowering. It is strong. It is… it burns right through her. It dries out her throat and makes her palms itch and has her pulling shuddering breaths through her lungs that don't seem to be working.

"Massie," he says again. Like he is trying to find her.

And his voice, that deep accent that comes exclusively from Four—it breaks through the fog.

The memories and feelings she was supposed to focus on thanks to the honey are spliced apart with those she felt when he touched her, things like training after hours, and harmless flirting, and sleeping too close, feet tangled to ensure the other was there. Things like unadulterated fear for his life, things like the taste of his mouth for the first time… these chase away the anger and hatred that started seeping into her bones—

They fight it. They _fight—_

But she still wants to hurt him. Her fingers itch with it. She can use her shoe if she gets close enough.

Real Massie whispers: Don't don't don't.

Capitol-made Massie hisses: Do it. Be the only Victor. Do it do it do it.

Don't. Don't, Real Massie begs, _don't you dare_.

"Say something else," she blurts, hanging on to the golden hue of his eyes. She feels mad again, but not at him entirely, but rather at whoever thought it was best to alter the color there. The green is striking, but he is already striking, and he doesn't need to be changed. She focuses on that. _Really_ focuses on that, because that's what trackerjacker honey does. It makes you focus, if it doesn't make you hallucinate. "Anything. Say anything. Please."

There are two of him now and she is losing control of her body like she did with the Head Peacekeeper. Is it because her mind is tired? Is it because of the honey? Should she even blame it if it's only enhancing what's in her already?

Remember the brown. Remember the brown. Does one of these Derricks have green in his eyes? That's the right one. The nice one. She thinks. Look look look.

She is dizzy.

One of him is concerned and beautiful. The other is angry and homicidal, but still as beautiful. She can't figure out which one is truly standing in front of her.

"Say something," she repeats. Frenzied. Bordering on hysterical.

But why? Why is she hysterical?

"I need you to say something."

Is her hand bleeding? Her hand is bleeding.

Brown and green. Brown and green. Brown and green?

His eyes cannot be described as just brown, she realizes now. She takes a step forward, squinting to find all the colors in them. She's done this once before. She remembers that quite vividly. Remembers colors quite vividly.

"What do you want me to say?" both Derricks ask. One is meaner than the other.

That doesn't work. The sound of his voice now doesn't do anything. Why did it work before? What is different about it now? He said her name twice. Anyone could say her name twice, it means _nothing_ —

But if he were to say it again, maybe…

He does.

Say her name out loud, that is.

She focuses on that, on the way his mouth forms the syllables of her name.

For a brief second the two Derricks collide. The one in the cream colored turtleneck and dark peacoat wins out for a moment, because the other one, the one in the lightweight jacket and flimsy shirt, would never say her name with such…

With care. Consideration. Longing?

Massie grips that, holds it tight in her mind, in her body, in her fist.

And then she's overcome with nausea and Derrick is two people. _She_ is two people.

Pick one, Massie. Pick the person you want to be.

She closes her eyes, breathes. In and out, like Alicia said.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

She focuses on things she knows are true right now, not the things Cam wanted her to know. Not her Games. Not this party. Not the voices in her head or the hands she still feels sliding up her thighs.

Her name is Massie.

She is from One.

She is seventeen now.

She is in a white dress and her lipstick has changed from purple to pink and there are a series of pearls and emeralds uncomfortably glued to her face.

She is cold.

It is cold out and she is cold and she is only in this white dress and this pink lipstick and these pearls and emeralds. Her shoes aren't even practical enough to be out here.

She must shiver.

She _must_ , because Derrick is sliding out of his coat, and it looks so comfy and warm, and he's stepping forward, one arm in, one arm out—and she still hasn't figured out which person she is.

"No!" she shouts, throwing her hands out. "Don't! Stay where you are."

"But you're cold."

"I don't care." She grits her teeth. "I… I'm sorry, but I really need you to stay away from me until I figure out who I am." The apology sounds lackluster on her tongue. She's had to force it out like it is something particularly awful. It is and it isn't.

"I know who you are," he replies automatically. "Do you want me to tell you?"

Yes.

It would be so easy for someone to tell her what to do, who she is, what he is, what he means to her, but someone has already done that, haven't they? "I need to do this on my own."

She runs through what she knows again, adds new information. Name: Massie Block. Age: 17. Home: One. Parents: William and Kendra. Games: Seventy-Four. Status: Victor. Cold. Confused. Looking at a boy that… that…

Her heart flutters.

He moves again, impatient with her thought process. Annoyed that it's taking so long. It must be irritating to be so certain of someone—of _yourself_ —and then watch them try to piece it, piece them, piece _you_ together in front of you.

"I said _no_ , Derrick," she snaps. "I said _no_."

He freezes, eyes wide, like the refusal somehow means more to him than her. Like he's hearing the word for the first time.

Maybe no one has ever said no to him before.

No, that's not right.

It's not right because he stops right there. It doesn't even look like he's breathing, eyes raking over her, inspecting her. It makes her feel weird, though she can't put a name to the feeling exactly. He is still half out of his jacket and he opens his mouth to, what, argue, maybe, now that he's gotten over the shock?

No.

That word again.

No.

"You're cold," he says again, like that matters. Can't he see? It doesn't. She'd rather freeze than give into her whims and try to snap his neck or shove her heel into his eye. She'd rather die of pneumonia than hurt him. "Just—take it," he offers, stretching his arm out. The sleeve of the coat brushes against the dying grass.

She watches it rustle the blades, blinking at them, remembering brighter, greener grass that she picked and ripped apart while she waited… while she waited... waited for him. _For_ him, because she wanted him. Because she hadn't felt complete without him.

He sighs, but it doesn't sound as annoyed as she originally thought. He sighs and bites his lip and tries again. "Take the jacket. I won't come any closer. I won't even… I'll just leave it right here. Just _please. Please_ take it, Massie."

Her name, once again, illuminates something. She gasps around a strangled breath and sees him notice it just as she did earlier. The way he says her name, it awakens her. Or fights off the part of her that dislikes him. That is confused.

He's only one person now. When did that happen? When did he become someone to her but she remained so unreachable? So unattainable?

Massie tilts her head, meets his gaze head-on. Brown and green brown and green brown and green.

He must notice her renewed attention, the clarity, the recognition, in her face, because he says her name again.

And again.

And again.

It doesn't sound real, her name, not anymore, not after the fiftieth time he says it.

Derrick manages to get closer. Manages to tug her arms through his coat, bundling her up.

He says her name again, _MassieMassieMassie_ , a caress against her earlobe. She shudders, but not from the cold.

She fists his sweater in her hands, tugging on it, on him, bringing him closer and closer until he's practically standing on her toes. He is hesitant as he wraps his arms around her, tucking her into his chest, but he keeps saying her name. Says it over and over, like a question, like an answer, like she is everything and more. Like she single handedly created the world and razed it to the ground.

Amidst the trackerjacker high, which is hitting her too hard, and the confusing emotions pulling tug of war in her mind, the way his tongue wraps around the six letters of her name is the only thing that makes sense.

"What's the matter?" he asks softly.

She clutches him, tries to bury herself in him, and whispers, "I don't know what's happening to me."

His hands are hot against her back. He's slid them beneath the jacket. He doesn't have anything to say that can help her, doesn't know what's going on with her either. He's remarkably brave to be this close to her after she tried not once but twice to hurt him, and she still kind of wants to now. She has this fleeting thought that it would be so easy, so simple, to knock him out, to punch him so hard in the nose it causes a brain bleed.

She swallows it down, presses into his shirt. He doesn't smell right. Maybe that's what it is.

"Do you want to talk through it?" he asks.

Massie doesn't. She wants to touch him, so she shoves his sweater up and grips his waist. His skin is warm beneath her trembling fingers and she carefully outlines the line of muscle she feels along his back.

If she does this, and if she keeps her eyes shut, maybe the feeling will pass. It is quiet. Her heart is calming, her blood is no longer pumping. She can relax now.

"Massie," he says when she doesn't reply after a while.

Her heart jumps, startled, scared. No longer silent. She lets out a breath, trying to keep herself loose, and curls her fingers around the waistband of his dress pants when she wants to dig her nails into the dimples at his spine, when she wants to draw blood. Her eyes are squeezed shut, it is so dark, but she somehow sees a glint of gold and it is not his hair or his eyes but rather his trident and she has to hold tighter to his pants, accidentally digging her knuckles into the cleft of his lower back.

"This isn't a good idea," she whispers.

"You touching me like that?" he replies, strangled, like she wanted him earlier. "I agree. It's not."

"No." Though she is somehow amused he is so sensitive here. Without knowing why, she flicks her thumb against the skin, feels him tremble beneath her fist. "Us being together. I don't think we're supposed to be."

He is so much taller than her that he has to slouch a bit to rest his chin on the top of her head. "Why do you think that?"

She feels his muscles clench and jump as she continues running her free hand along his spine, letting her fingers dip beneath his pants just a bit, and then up again. He chokes, and she says, "There can only be one of us but there are two and that is not right."

"Does it matter?" he asks, reaching around to stop her teasing. He holds her hands in his, intertwining their fingers. "If we're together, everything is right."

"No, I don't—I don't think this is _okay_ , I mean." She clears her throat, unsure how to explain to him how she was the only one affected by their Games. He seems sane enough, he seems _him_ enough, and she's… she's only able to fight off the urge to throttle him by the sound his voice and the touch of his fingers. And even then it doesn't last too long.

His eyes are bright as she mulls this over.

Finally she settles on, "I'm not okay. You know that, right? I'm not… me." It's hard to say this. She doesn't know why. It's kind of like the block on her memories is keeping these words close, not allowing them to let out. That wall she was sure collapsed earlier is being rebuilt. She can see the hands layer the brick again, feels herself closing off. She's certain Kemp is the one doing it, but why would Kemp want her to be something she's not? That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that she's scared of it. Scared of _him_ , right now, not Derrick. "In a few minutes I may want to choke you again."

"I'll allow it only if it is sexual in nature," Derrick teases.

"That's—I'm not kidding." Massie wets her lips. "Even right now I kind of want to hurt you, but not you. A different you. You're not the you I want to hurt." She is frustrated then, because that's not the right thing to say. "That doesn't make sense," she mutters. She wants him to let go of her now.

She feels the wall again. She is suffocating beneath it. Behind it. In front of it. She thinks if she reaches out she can touch it. It would be smooth. Tough. Harder to break, like someone has learned a lesson in construction.

There is laughter, but it's not hers. Not his. It's not even in the vicinity. It's in her head. Part of her thinks it's funny she's so confused.

Given everything, Derrick still stands there. Still keeps them wrapped in each other. "What can I do to make it make sense?" he asks, like she hasn't just informed him she may stab him in the eye with all the bobby-pins in her hair.

That is just as confusing and disconcerting as the rest of this is, if not more, but it is the only thing that makes her cry again.

This is a mess. She is a mess. They're going to kill her.

She failed the moment she stepped foot in this stupid mansion. Myner always knew she would. Two tributes may have been pulled from the arena but only one was crowned. It wasn't her.

There is a point in not giving her a crown. Not that she really wants or needs it to know she's won, but it means something to not have it. To be denied it.

She might as well make it count, she guesses, if she's never going to get it. If she's going to _die._

"Tell me something true," she says.

Derrick does not hesitate when he replies, "I love you." His voice is oddly serious. Tight. "Only you. You're the only person I love."

"Tell me something else," she replies, because those words don't have to be true to be said out loud. Plenty of people lie about that.

Again he has an answer without even a second's thought. "I have never felt like this about anyone else." He runs his thumbs under her eyes, catching her tears before they fall. "I'll relive that arena over and over if it means you're in there with me. It doesn't matter what version of you is there: the one I first met, the one that sometimes gets caught in her mind, the one that's standing right in front me. If you're there, I'm home."

 _Home_.

"I want to go home," she'd told Alicia. She hadn't known what that meant when she said it. Hadn't known where she felt most at home. Now she knows she meant this. She meant him.

Home, it turns out, can be a person.

Someone kicks through the wall Kemp is building. A tiny little someone. Massie feels it deep in her bones as it crashes again, the third time that day, and she shudders almost violently against him.

He wraps his arms around her waist, holds her steady, and asks, "Are you—"

But he doesn't get to finish his sentence because she's kissing him. She's kissing him, she's kissing him, she's kissing him.

She's going to die later and she doesn't care because she wants to die kissing him.

 **...**

Spoiler: She doesn't die later.

But she does stop kissing Derrick because good things, because _nice_ things, always end so quickly.

 **...**

Have you noticed it's only the terrible things that drag on and on and on?

 **...**

The clock in the foyer reads several hours later. Several meaning two. Massie watches the hands move, seconds ticking by, and doesn't look at Derrick's back as he slips into the party. The party for her she's been neglecting.

Okay, she does watch his back, but only for five seconds. She counts.

She buries her face in the collar of the peacoat she's still wearing and hates the way she feels so empty all of a sudden. It smells less and less like the Capitol and more like him: sand, and surf, and a hint of lemon.

In the time he's been gone, the affection she's felt for him has slowly started to dissipate.

It's not for lack of trying, but the Capitol changed not only him but her. She hears him say her name but because he's not standing there in front of her, mouth moving, it does nothing. She feels the ghost of his touch but it makes her skin crawl, makes her itchy. Makes her think of painful touches. She wonders if she'll be able to remember him in any capacity that is not tinged in hatred. She wonders if she'll be allowed anything ever.

Again she inhales Derrick's scent, finding it comforting—they may have been able to alter everything tangible about him, but they never knew enough about two things.

Scent.

Taste.

Massie lets her world turn into salt and citrus and warmth and the tang of champagne and the tingle of chocolate.

When the footsteps sound behind her, she is resigned to it.

So resigned, in fact, she is hardly aware of it. Just of the extra body in the room, and then—and then—

" _No_ ," she shrieks. Not shrieks, actually, no, because she knows better. But that's what it sounds like in her head. It resounds there. It echoes. It gets louder. No. No. No. _No. NO._

"I'm not—I'm just taking it off. It's not going anywhere."

Massie digs her nails into the sleeves.

"They've seen him wear it all night," the person hisses, trying to tug tug tug her arms out of the peacoat. "They know it's his so you can't wear it, you're not allowed, but you can—I'm sure he'll let you keep it, if that's what you're concerned about."

It's a struggle. A goddamn _fight._

Massie grits her teeth and acts like this person is ripping her _skin_ off, and he's—because it's a he, she knows from the feel of his hands and the rumble of his voice—he's grunting and cursing her under his breath, over his breath, out loud, quietly, over and over. His fingers are calloused, cracked. They rub against her wrist the wrong way; his hands are all wrong and this is oddly intimate, the way she's pressed against his chest, and it's not Derrick, it's not it's not it's not—

"Let go of me," she hisses. "Stop _touching_ —"

"Take the goddamn fucking jacket off and let me put it somewhere else before you get all of us killed!"

She stomps her heel on his toes.

"You know what? I'm done playing nice." He twists her around by the collar, ruining it. Doesn't he know this is important? This jacket is the only thing keeping her relatively sane? Relatively— _calm_? "You've already fucked up big time, and normally I wouldn't give _two shits_ about a new Victor but Cam is—he—means a lot to me, and you mean a lot to him, so." There is a tick in his jaw. "I'm cleaning up your mess."

Massie glares into the dark brown of his eyes, refusing to sweep her gaze over his darker, tanner skin. "You call tearing a girl out of her clothes _playing nice_?"

"If I liked you, it _would_ be nice," this kid hisses. "Give me the jacket and _listen_ , Massie."

" _No_ ," Massie says again. "No. I don't care, I want this, you don't understand what—"

"Don't understand what?"

 _Don't understand what this does to me, what it means_ —even as its smell is fading because he's touching it and her hair is all over it and she's angry again, at this kid, at herself, at Derrick Harrington—

"It doesn't matter," she snips. "Let me keep the jacket and go away. I don't need you."

"You may not need me, but I need Cam, and I'm not going to let your idiocy kill him." He's in her face now, fingers digging into both her neck and the coat. "I'm not opposed to hitting a girl."

Massie bites her lip and _pulls._

He's stronger.

She's more persistent.

It doesn't matter.

"Josh!" Alicia shouts. " _Stop_!"

He halts immediately. Massie kicks at him blindly, whacking him in the knee. He hisses, hand shooting out, and grabs her ankle. His grip is tight and painful but she ignores it, glaring up at who she just figured out is Josh Hotz of the Sixty-Third Hunger Games.

"She's annoying, Ali," Josh snaps.

"Doesn't mean you should manhandle her." Alicia comes to Massie's side, a comforting hand on her shoulder, and murmurs, "Are you alright?"

It sounds like she's asking about more than just Josh's rude behavior.

"Yes," says Massie, even though she really means no. She hugs her arms around her middle.

Josh balls his hands into fists in the pockets of his khakis. "I don't want to help someone who doesn't want to be helped." He spares a glare at Massie. "Let her self-destruct, I don't fucking care."

Alicia levels him with a nasty look of her own, fingers slipping from Massie's shoulder to her elbow, swiping against the material of Derrick's jacket. Massie isn't sure it's doing much anymore besides keeping her warm, but she burrows into it anyway. "If I recall you were a bumbling, weeping mess when you won and you needed Todd to—"

"You didn't know me then," Josh interrupts, snarling, "so shut up. _You_ were the bumbling, weeping mess, not wanting to sell yourself even though you used your body to win your _own_ —"

Massie finds her hand tangled with Alicia's, not sure who instigated this, not sure who grabbed whose hand first, and squeezes the girl's fingers. "This isn't about _me_ ," Alicia snaps. "It's about making sure Massie and Derrick don't get in trouble."

" _They're already in trouble_!" Josh all but shouts. "And fuck, I'm not letting Cam sleep his way through the party just to keep the peace!"

"Maybe you should help him out," Alicia simpers. "I'm sure some of his people would _looooove_ to sleep with you, too."

He looks like he wants to slap her but thinks better of it, running a hand through his hair. "Alicia, you have no idea—"

"You forget I know him as well as you," she snaps. "I won right after him. I was older than him, but that doesn't mean anything. I care about him too. I was _there_ too. Sometimes when you weren't."

Massie blurts, before they can get into it: "He knows?"

She's not sure what she's asking about.

"He knows everything," Josh answers. There is less of a bite to these words. He sighs, dragging a calculating eye over Massie—and subsequently Alicia, who still holds her hand tight. " _Everything._ "

"So why bother trying to take the jacket then?" Massie asks. "If he knows everything…"

"Trying to save face, I guess," says Josh. "Keep it."

"Cam thought this would happen, so…" Alicia tugs at her arm, making Massie look at her. Her eyes are wide and sad, her lips pulling into a tiny frown even as she smiles at her. "I have to ask you: How do you feel about Derrick?"

Josh's attention swivels from the two of them to the many doors surrounding them, like he's doing surveillance. Like he's the lookout.

It's an easy answer on the tip of her tongue, and she's about to say it when she remembers.

It feels like she's always going through some state of remembrance. Constantly forgetting and remembering. Remembering and forgetting. Over and over: things she should already know that have turned into things she doesn't.

So she looks from Josh's stiff back to Alicia's earnest expression and lies, "I can't stand him. I wish I didn't have to share my victory with him."

The sharp breath Josh lets out makes Massie wonder, but she doesn't have a chance to voice it or even acknowledge it when a new voice croons, "Let's find out how true that really is, shall we?"

"Fawn," Alicia greets mechanically. Her eyes narrow a smidge and her fingers tighten around Massie's. The way she shifts her body makes it seem like she's getting ready for a fight, or to throw Massie out of the way. "I was unaware you were invited."

"Why would I not be? Massie was one of my tributes."

"Right," Massie replies dully. _Fawn does not have her best interests at heart._ "Because you loved me so much."

A step behind her and the feel of breath against her neck alerts her to Josh's presence.

"Granted I did favor Kemp more, but…" Fawn smiles. It is icy and cruel, much like her. "Can you blame me when _this_ is the alternative?"

"Massie's fine," Josh snaps.

Fawn's smile only widens. She looks like a predator, all sharp teeth and pretty face, eyes glinting in the dim light. "Is she?" She turns towards the girl in question, takes a light, stalking step towards her. Alicia gets ready for something. "Are you, Massie? Are you _fine_? Is everything _fine_? Is it _working_?"

"Not sure what you're implying but I am, in fact, fine," Massie replies. She tries to shake Alicia loose but can't. "Everything is great. I'm so happy to be here."

"No distractions? No… changes of heart?"

"Nope," she answers, popping the _p_.

"We'll see about that." Fawn jiggles a wrist, bangles clashing together, and holds a hand out, like she's a friend. "Come with me. The president has asked to see you."

Massie's heart stutters in her chest. She casually wipes her hands on her dress; they're clammy and sweaty and nervous, trembling against her skirt and in Alicia's grip. "Okay," she says, like she isn't terrified. She only hopes it isn't written all over her face like she feels like it is.

Alicia squeezes her fingers again. Lets go.

Josh brushes his palm against the back of her neck under the pretense of fixing the collar of the jacket she still refuses to remove. They don't know each other like that for him to do this, but she leans into the touch anyway. "Focus," he whispers against the crown of her head.

"And if I can't?" she counters as quietly as possible, because that is a possibility.

Josh smooths down the shoulders of Derrick's peacoat, hands traveling down her body like they've been friends forever, like they're lovers. She feels a new weight against her side as something is dropped in her pocket. He pats her hips. Once. Twice. That is answer enough.

 **...**

She follows Fawn.

 **...**

They meet in a room much unlike his office, though she only has slight recollections of it from her childhood. That, and the overwhelming sense of doom, but that can't make sense. She's never been there for longer than a second; at least that is what her mind and her memories are telling her.

This place, though—this place is set up like a home theatre, equipped with plush, reclining seats and a huge screen against the far wall. It must be where Myner hosts his favored guests—read: his top sponsors—for the Hunger Games viewing. It's a nauseating homage to Victors past and present, their promo photos framed in gold hung along the wall. They go back so far, but Massie can see her father and her mother, Victors a year apart, eighteen and fresh-faced. She sees Cam's mom, Pamela, and then, several pictures later, Cam himself, fourteen and small. Josh is three behind him; Alicia is one in front. Kristen Gregory and Nathan Biggs are in the mix as well, along with Dylan Marvil, who has her nails permanently filed and shaped into weapons themselves, and Christopher Plovert, the tech genius who used the Capitol's own technology against itself.

The space for the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games is empty. Massie avoids thinking about the reason why, even as her mind whispers it.

 _He hasn't decided yet._

This is but part of the test and Massie wearing this peacoat means she's already on uneven ground.

Fawn runs her fingers lovingly along the picture of herself: blonde curls, blue eyes, tiny nose. Eighteen and probably just as annoying as she is now.

She fucking _chirps_ a greeting to Cole Myner, as if she's a teen and not a thirty-something who needs to chill and get a life, maybe.

Massie is not even surprised a little Fawn has turned into a Myner lapdog. It's fitting, really, since she's shitty and so is he. And she hates Massie, so of course she'd volunteer to do this for him. She wants to see Massie suffer.

But Massie will not suffer.

She will do as they ask, as they say, and she will be as silent as a mouse if they do anything that upsets her. Weakness is not an option—not during training, not in the arena, not in front of the president.

She shoves her hands in the pockets of the coat and fingers the tiny vial Josh had snuck in there.

"My dear," Cole says to her, not Fawn. He strides towards her to press cold, unfeeling kisses to her cheeks. Massie smiles. "My love, if you were cold you merely could have said. No need to take jackets from others."

"He offered," Massie replies. "I couldn't say no to such a thing."

"Even if it is from Derrick?"

"Even so," Massie says, making sure to add just enough bite, just enough twist of the lips. "I will return it once we are finished here. I have no intentions of keeping it."

( _Yes, you do._

 _Shut up._ )

Myner must see right through her: "Take it off now, then, and I will make sure it is received."

She hopes they do not see her hesitance as she does so, shoving the vial in her fist. She drapes the coat over one of the seats, letting her eyes remain shut a moment longer than usual as she blinks.

Derrick's scent—the sand, the surf, that citrus—it floats about her still, settling into the ends of her hair and the fabric of her dress. She wills it to stay, to give her strength.

Unfortunately everything is overpowered by Myner's ever-present floral scent. He always smells like a greenhouse or cedar-y, like nature. They say he is a real outdoorsman, chopping wood and planting trees.

"That's better," the man in question murmurs. "Now we can see your lovely dress. It becomes you."

Massie allows pink to settle in her cheeks and smiles again, attempting to look bashful. "Thank you," she returns. "Jakkob and his team always know what to do with me."

"That they do," Myner agrees. He waves a hand. "Please, have a seat. There is much for us to catch up on. I haven't seen you since the Recap." He glances up. "Dim the lights as you leave, Fawn."

The sound of retreating heels is all Massie hears for a while, then the lights are lowered and Myner has his attention on her once more.

 _Focus_.

 _You know what to focus on._

 _What is it?_

 _Tell me it._

 _Focus focus focus._

Massie squeezes the vial. She doesn't want to have to do any more drugs to make it through this night, but if she has to, she has to. She just hopes it is not anything derived from trackerjackers; she doesn't think she can handle it. Without an anchor, she is slipping, like she did on the dance floor.

She sets her gaze on Myner, using the blue in his eyes to keep her steady. It doesn't work. Like all blue eyes, she sees Landon, and she feels that sense of foreboding again.

Myner smiles.

Massie swallows.

 _Focus focus focus._

He's talking. What is he saying? Listen.

"...all healed?" is what she hears.

She may be sweating as she answers, "Yes. No residual pain and especially no scars, which I am incredibly grateful for. I am in perfect shape for the Tour." She takes a breath, recalls her manners. "Thank you for throwing me this party. I know it is not—typical to have two Capitol parties during one Victory Tour."

"It is not typical for my goddaughter to win the Games." Myner winks. "It's the least I can do without seeming biased. I am so proud of you."

 _Liar_.

Still, she acts gracious, like she normally would, even as it eats her up inside.

"I would like, if you're willing"—and she will have to be willing, there are no choices with Myner—"to walk through your Games with you. We did not get a chance to discuss them as I normally do with other Victors. Your health was of the utmost importance."

"Of course," she trills. "It would be my pleasure."

"Excellent," the President says. "Are you up for a rewatch?"

Shakily, Massie replies, "Yes."

When Myner turns his back, Massie uncaps whatever Josh gave her and downs it. She's glad it is a liquid: easy to take, easy to hide. It is a fluorescent pink color, something she's never seen before, and she has a fleeting sense of terror that Josh is trying to kill her or something similar, he doesn't even like her, before that disappears as quickly as it came. Whatever this is, and she'll ask later—if she survives, of course—works fast.

She's lightheaded and squinting, snippets of earlier conversations flying to the forefront of her mind—snippets of conversations with _Cam_ flying to the forefront of her mind—as the screen blinks awake and the country's seal shines against black.

Her head hurts a bit, and her hands seem much bigger than they are so she sits on them. Myner puts his palm on her shoulder and that, too, feels different. Off. Extremely heavy.

She swallows as the Opening Ceremony starts. Sniffs when she sees herself and Kemp, pinkies linked, dripping in jewels and gems. She has an extravagant tiara atop her glossy curls. She recalls it was taken from the vault of some big name socialite, a woman who was proud to let Massie wear it for an hour or two. That woman was one of her biggest sponsors. She thought Massie was _so sweet._ So pretty.

Massie looks away from herself, glances over the warriors they turned Two into, avoids the mechanical look of Three, and makes herself look at Four. At Derrick and Ripple, who are different tides of the same sea.

Ripple is the calm, the bright blues and greens, where the sun is shining and the children play amongst the waves. She has a headband of shells braided into her hair. She looks like a princess. A mermaid. Derrick, on the other hand, is the embodiment of brutal storms. All darks and blacks, with navy painted down the sharp line of his cheekbones. Seaweed is threaded through his riot of golden waves, damp and mussed to look like he'd just risen from the depths.

She doesn't remember this. She hadn't paid attention to the others until halfway through training, worried more about herself and Kemp.

She zeros in on the easy way Derrick smiles, how he subtly dotes on Ripple, who looks nervous. It works for him; she can see the sponsors, the women especially, already deciding to send him gifts. He tugs on Ripple's messy fishtail braid, makes her laugh, and Massie feels something in her heart crack.

It may very well be her heart that is actually cracking, to be honest. She looks down to check she is not bleeding through her dress.

She's not.

He did not kill Ripple.

There's no way.

Watching him here, where he splits his time between charming the crowd and making her feel comfortable— _he did not kill Ripple._

She knows he didn't because Cam told her and Cam doesn't lie, but she _knows_ herself because she's looking at him right now, and there is no way he can so senselessly kill this little girl. No possible way.

Massie feels Myner's gaze on her cheek and moves her own along, taking in the rest of the brightly-colored tributes. They look as one dimensional as the Capitol sees their districts to be—except for Twelve. For once they are not the coal miners they are always dressed as. They are _more_. They are _better_.

She wonders if they were supposed to be that way for a reason. Wonders if they were a sign of _something_ and Massie just… didn't give them a chance.

Not something to worry about now, seeing as both from Twelve are dead and if she isn't careful she will be too.

"Whatever happened to my outfit?" she asks airily, leaning forward a bit. "I forgot how great it was."

"We keep them all," says Myner. "Many people here will pay to buy these outfits—"

"Even if the tributes who wore them didn't win?"

" _Especially_ if they didn't win," he tells her. "Naturally the Victor's Opening Ceremony outfit is the most precious, but I have not yet allowed anyone to place a proper bid on yours. I've had offers, of course, but if you would like, you can wear it at the end of your Tour, when you find your way back here."

Unspoken: _if you find your way back here._

Another test.

She clasps her hands together, feels the vibrations of that movement all the way up to her elbows, and grins. Her face doesn't feel right. "I would just love that!"

And she would, actually. This dress is _stunning_. She wishes Jakkob could have just given it to her. And that tiara… _ugh_.

"Your wish is my command," Myner murmurs.

The tape continues.

Massie presses her heels into the ground.

The interviews are the same. She's incredible, Two is lackluster, Derrick is amazing, and the rest are unimportant. She makes sure to look displeased when she sees everyone that is not her.

"A quick word of caution," Myner adds as the countdown begins.

Massie turns away from the screen, from where she is standing between the tribute from Three and Andy from Eleven, and meets her godfather's eyes. There is a glint in them, amused and calculating all at once; despite it being alarming, Massie holds it.

It is silent for a moment, except for the _thirty twenty nine twenty eight._

" _This_ is real."

"What is?" she asks, even as fear shoots its way through her bloodstream.

Again his hand is on her body. When she looks at it, it is as slimy and snake-like as its owner, a person she used to like. Used to look up to. Part of her still does, if she's honest, because that's been ingrained in her, but the bigger part can't believe she ever did, especially if _this_ is how he treats people. Treats _her_.

"Your memories have been tampered with," Myner says. "What you know is not what really happened. What's in here"—he taps her head—"is not real. It's what's on this screen that is true."

 _How long do you think the Capitol can suppress my memories for?_

She doesn't say anything, pretending to mull it over.

"I know it's a lot," he continues, like he cares, like he's concerned for her, "but your father and brother thought it would be best—"

"I don't have a brother," Massie blurts, ignoring the heat surging through her. Another test. This is another test.

Everything is a test.

The countdown ticks on: _twelve eleven ten nine_.

"You don't?" Myner looks delighted. "Think, Massie. Have you ever noticed how similar you and Mr. Fisher look? How he has your father's hair? How your father _dotes_ on him?"

 _Eight seven six._

"No." Massie shakes her head. "You're just trying to confuse me because I am already confused. You're trying to make it seem like I don't know anything, but I know things. I know who my father is and who my mother is and I know I am an only child and I do not have a brother or a sister. I know I know _I know_."

Myner's smirk widens. She shouldn't have said that. She _definitely_ shouldn't have said that.

Massie's hands shake beneath her thighs. She feels like she is going to combust, maybe. Her heart is racing faster than it ever has before, and she's not so sure if it's because of what's happening now right in front of her, or if it's the drugs Josh gave her, the drugs she shouldn't have taken.

 _Five._

All she can think about is Cam, and his dark, _dark_ hair, and his too pale skin, and his one blue eye, and his easy going grin, and his impressive jawline, and his—

She gasps as it pieces itself together. She twists in her seat, squints at eighteen year old William Block, and then at fourteen year old Cam Fisher, and she _sees_.

 _Four._

"Your _family_ did this to you, Massie," Myner says silkily. There is a roaring in her ears. He is yelling. "It's always family that hurts you in the end. Sad, isn't it?"

Yes. Yes, it is.

She is nauseous again. She is dizzy again. She spots all the similarities in William and Cam—the dark hair, the blue eyes, the same way they dimple on the left side when they smile. How come she never noticed this before? How had she never _seen_ it?

 _Three._

Brother. Her _brother_. Is that why he cared so much about her? Because he felt like he had to? Because he was _obligated_?

The longer she stares at the pictures, her seat deliberately picked so she is square between them, the more she sees the resemblances. The more she can pick out how Pamela mixed with William created Cam and how Kendra mixed with William created her.

It makes her head hurt. Makes her question everything, including herself, and she slowly unravels, not sure what is real and what is not. Who has lied to her? Who has told her the truth?

 _Two._

Is it her father? Is it Cam? Is it Derrick? Alicia? Josh? Is it Myner? Who has never lied to her?

Not herself, that's for sure. She doesn't know herself enough to figure out if she's telling the truth or not.

 _One._

Massie tears her gaze away from the photos to look at Myner. Maybe he's bluffing. Maybe he only wants to confuse her to prove he's right, that she's not the right fit. Not the right Victor.

Because she's not. She's not the right one. She knows that. Cam knows that. Her father knows that. They all know that, every single person here.

But she only sees that smile on his face from before, just more pronounced. More amused. Only sees the way it twists in on itself, changing, evolving. She sees that smile, and then she sees something else: It is the feral grin of the mountain lion mutts that tried to kill her in the arena. It is the jaws that snap, eager to dig into flesh bone. Eager to destroy her.

She swallows, unable to look away as Myner transforms into an awful, angry predator right in front of her, and the cannon sounds, the Recap starts, and she is screwed.

 _BOOM._


	10. Part Ten: Failure

_**Me, bored at work: *posts***_

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
_ _Part Ten_

* * *

 **failure | ˈfālyər  
** noun  
 _lack of success  
_ synonyms: defeat, frustration, collapse, disaster, catastrophe, botch, letdown

* * *

 _ **arena: day eighteen**_

Mutts.

She should have known. Should have _assumed_. After saying something as controversial as _either we leave this arena together or we don't leave it at all_ ; after losing her absolute _shit_ over injuries that are normal, expected, wanted in the Games; after laying it all out there on the table, showing the districts and the Capitol just who she is—she should have known better.

The mutts are lions, just like the ones that chased Derrick to the Cornucopia. They're all golden-haired, like him, with gleaming teeth and strong haunches and sharp, sharp claws. They stop to circle around Andy's dead body, sniffing at the blood that has yet to stop flowing from the trident wound raking down his neck to his hips. One laps at him, its muzzle drenched red, and looks up to blink its clever, clear eyes at Massie and Derrick.

Derrick shoves her back. She trips over a root, over her own feet, over him, and lands unceremoniously on her back. He hoists her back up, pointing his trident at the group of lions—not enough to be a pride but enough to make this endeavor look bleak.

Massie holds tight to his hand, fearful that if she lets go he'll be gone for good. Fearful that this is it for them, even when he'd promised… even when they _said_.

"Let go," he whispers. "Let go and _run_."

The lions prowl closer. The one with the blood around its mouth licks at the red, wetting it, spreading it, tasting it. Another takes a moment to chomp down on Andy too, ripping flesh from his body.

Massie gags.

"Run," Derrick says again, forceful, commanding.

"No," she answers.

He spares her a glance, eyes wide, eyes terrified. " _Please_ ," he begs, as the growls get closer, get louder. "I can't… I can't watch them—"

"Then don't," Massie argues, interrupting him. "Run with me. Don't… don't be a hero."

He looks from her to the mutts and back again, gauges the distance between the mutts and themselves, and drops his trident.

Massie swallows back her shriek, shoots her arms out to catch it for him, _what a stupid thing to do_ , but can't move, not when Derrick is cupping her face in his hands and dropping his head to press his mouth to hers.

It's a rough kiss with too much teeth and a bite that cuts through her lower lip. She tastes the copper of her own blood, _smells_ it, and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. She tilts her head, deepens the kiss, smears the blood, and when she blinks, he looks startlingly just like that lion, the one at the head of the pack, the one that is just _staring_ at them.

Derrick is still holding her cheeks, gaze raking over her face like he'll never see it again. "We don't have much time," he says quickly, and the word _time_ makes Massie's heart sink right into her stomach. He's so resigned to it, so accepting of his fate and hers, that she opens her mouth to argue, to plead, to fight—

He shakes his head, pressing his fingers to her mouth. "Please. Just listen."

She tangles her hand in his hair, their noses pressing together. She can only see into one of his eyes this way, on her tiptoes, flush against his chest. "Okay," she breathes.

The mutts have to be right on them now; _they have to be_.

"I love you," he tells her. "I've loved you this whole time. It's like I didn't know there was something missing from my life before you walked into it. If this is all I'm allowed to have with you, it's enough. It's enough because I never thought I would have this in the first place, never thought I'd find someone I could—someone like you." He pauses, pulling in a ragged breath. "And that's why I need you to run. Because I love you, because it feels like I've loved you my whole life, because I will always love you, even if it's only been a few weeks. Even if I don't know what you told your teachers you wanted to be when you grew up, even if I don't know the name of your dog, even if I don't know your middle name. I love you. I love you. I love you." He presses tiny kisses to her nose with each declaration. "I love you," he says again, "I need you to live."

The growling turns to roars, her cheeks are wet with tears, and she doesn't even have the opportunity to tell him she loves him back before he is shoving her again and the mutts are on him.

Massie sniffles, feeling like every part of her is going to explode, is going to _die_ , as she backs up. He doesn't even have his trident as he goes down, that leader lion digging its already bloodied teeth into his calf.

Into his _injured_ calf.

She hears his bark of pain, imagines it is a cannon, and knows she _will_ explode, she _will_ die, if anything happens to him right now. So she does not run—was she really ever going to?—but she fumbles with the inner pocket of her jacket, produces her array of knives, and throws.

She gets one of them right in the snout, a clean cut through the nose, and it goes down with a whimper. There are still too many of them.

Her body moves on its own volition, legs racing, knees bending, arm swooping low to grab the trident she thrusts into Derrick's empty hands.

"I told you to run," he hisses. There is so much blood on him.

"I love you, too, you asshole," she replies, stabbing two knives into a mutt's throat. She pulls them out, wipes them on her pants. "I'm not just leaving you here."

There is a ghost of a smile on Derrick's face before he pivots on his good leg and skewers another mutt. It hangs off golden prongs, taking a few hard shakes to drop to the ground. He steps over it, tugs on Massie's freshly braided hair, and says, "I don't know why I thought my speech would work."

She throws a few more knives, some hitting their marks, others embedding themselves to the hilt into tree bark. With every lion that dies, it seems like two more fill its place. "My middle name is Lynn," she tells him. "My dog's name is Bean. I always wanted to do this. I never had any other goals, but I imagine I'd do some sort of fashion designing if I never got picked for the arena. What about you?"

"I liked fishing with my dad," Derrick admits. He's shoved back by a trio of what look like lion cubs, vicious and snarling. He takes all of them out in one go, grunting as he slashes at their backs, right where their spines meet their necks. "I don't have a dog, and my middle name is Alexander."

"Well, Derrick Alexander," Massie starts, surveying the area around them, "I believe we have our work cut out for us right now."

He looks too, more and more mutts joining the fray, even as the body count rises. And it's not like they're superhuman or anything; both of them are covered in scratch marks, both shallow and deep, and bites where skin is hanging off their arms, their legs. Derrick is worse for wear, his already healed wounds opening right back up, but he only has eyes for Massie.

" _Run_ ," he says again, more panicked, more desperate. "Just go. Please. You don't have to—"

"Either we leave this arena together or we don't leave it at all," she repeats, voice a vicious snap. "Wherever you go, I go."

"Massie, _no_ —"

"You can't change my mind, Derrick!" she snaps. "I don't want to live in a world without you. You can't be the only one with grandiose speeches and feelings, alright? I've loved you this whole time too—"

" _Massie_ —"

"Shut _up_ , I'm trying to talk here!" she exclaims. "I've loved you this whole time too and it took me much longer than you to figure it out and now that I _have_ I'm not letting a bunch of mutts or the stupid Hunger Games take that away from me!"

" _Massie_ —"

" _What_?" she demands. "You can't convince me otherwise, Derri—"

"Massie, _behind you_!"

She twirls, quick on her feet, but not quick enough. It burns as claws slash down her stomach, ripping her suit to ribbons. It cushions the blow, the material of this thing, but she can still feel everything. It's like those claws are made of glass and they've broken to pieces, to _shards_ , inside of her.

She gasps, pressing a hand to her front. The palm comes away dripping red. She is lucky the mutt didn't aim higher, closer to her heart, to her lungs, or she wouldn't be standing right now.

Or… laying, is the right word for it, since she is flat on her back, trying to regulate her body.

The mutt hovers over her, breath hot and stinking against her cheek, jaw opening wide to take another, more fatal blow, when Derrick's trident comes soaring a breath above Massie's nose. The lion's skull cracks as the weapon makes contact with it, sending both flying back into the remaining mutts, the ones biding their time.

Massie scrambles up and away, ignoring the pain in her abdomen, and collects all of her fallen knives, slipping three in between her fingers. She makes a fist and slashes at the closest lion, staining the flank with blood and dirt.

But the mutts are not interested in her right now, not when they're smart enough to know that Derrick is weaponless, his trident buried deep in their fallen comrade, and they race past her to him, ready to rip him to shreds.

Massie cannot handle that image, cannot handle the way her mind destroys him. She doesn't allow herself to catch her breath before she's running, eager to ensure Derrick does not become a bloody pulp of a man, and _leaps_ onto the back of the nearest mutt. It roars in anger, bucking its hips, trying to get her off, but all she can see is Derrick's dead eyes, blood dripping from his mouth, body a ghost of its former self.

She's a bigger threat to them now, so they ignore Derrick for the time being. She slashes and slices and cuts, the one on her right dropping. The one on her left has claws that find a home in her shoulder. She grits her teeth against that, kicks her leg out, and makes contact with its face, smashing its nose with the heel of her shoe.

As for the one she's on top of… it throws her off of it just as she stabs a knife into its eye. They fall as one, the mutt where she left it, and Massie farther back, in a bush. She hits the ground hard, head swimming. She tries to regulate her breathing, tries to stop the world from spinning, and finds that both of these tasks are hard to accomplish. Even harder now that she is bleeding almost everywhere. She places a hand on her stomach; the area is tender and sore, aching with the effort to keep herself conscious. To keep herself _alive._

She lays there for a moment or two, staring up at the sky through the branches of this bush, and listens as hard as she can. There is still growling and hissing, but no sign of Derrick and, more importantly, no cannon.

He's not dead.

He's not dead.

He's not dead.

But he will be. _She_ will be. There's no way the two of them are making it out of this bloodbath alive. Only one of them. And she knows—she knows he wants it to be her even though her without him is unthinkable. If he thinks she can live without him, if she _wants_ to live without him… that's laughable. Even if she does make it out of here, she'll just kill herself. Finding him and then losing him… that's not an option.

It is with that in mind that Massie forces herself into a sitting position, groaning as her stomach pulls. She applies more pressure there, fingers stained even more in red, and takes a deep, gasping breath once she is no longer horizontal.

A branch cuts her just above the brow, and that hurts, too, but not as much as her stomach does, or her shoulder, or even her right hip, where she took the brunt of this fall. She raises a hand to brush it away, the branch, when she feels them.

Berries.

She tugs at them, brings them close to her eyes, and takes in the dark purple of the skin. Nightlock. _Nightlock nightlock nightlock_.

A plan forms in her mind.

She grabs as many berries as she can fit in her fist, knowing she will only need maybe, like, six at the maximum, and then stumbles to her feet. She lands rather painfully on her knees at first, but pushes herself up as quickly as she can.

When she emerges from the bush, only one mutt remains. Derrick makes quick work of it, using his hands this time to break its neck.

And then it is over. No more lions appear, nothing comes from behind him or her, and it is silent, just the sounds of their rasping breaths.

She drags herself over to him, grimacing with each step, and he grabs her by the waist, frowning at every inch of her covered in blood. Frowning at the ruins of her bodysuit, slashed up at her shoulder, her stomach, her hip, and all the way down her leg. There's even a few marks on her back, probably from where she fell into that bush, but other than that…

 _He's_ the one drenched in blood, his hair stained like the rising sun, his face smeared with dirt and sweat. But he's holding her like she's the only one injured here, dropping to his knees, hands running all over her body, touch as light as a feather.

"It's just a superficial wound," she tells him when he presses the pads of his fingers to her shoulder.

"It's nothing serious," she says, his hands trembling against her stomach.

"I'm fine," she promises, pressing a kiss to his mouth. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm _fine_."

Derrick kisses her easily, knowing that she is anything but fine, knowing that _he_ is anything but fine, and this is even worse than the last. It's more definite. It's more of a goodbye than anything else, but she's not afraid of it. Not like she was before.

Because this time, they're not going anywhere the other can't follow.

This time, the goodbye is on their own terms. (Or hers, if you want to be get technical.)

"Derrick," she whispers, "give me your hand."

He doesn't hesitate, opens his palm in front of him.

She drops the berries there.

He pulls away from her, looks down, acknowledges what she's asking, and says, "I can't do it without you."

She opens her hand to show him the berries she's kept for herself and replies, "I _won't_ do it without you."

With his free hand, he tucks her bloodstained flyaway hairs behind her ear, cups her cheek, her chin, and leans forward to kiss the spot on her forehead right between her eyes. She presses her lips to his throat.

Together, eyes never wavering, they bring the berries to their mouths.

 _I should be scared_ , she thinks, her tongue wrapping around the fruit. But she's not. She's not scared. Not when she's doing this with him, not when he's looking right at her, his eyes gold in the afternoon sun.

She loves him.

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him, and she will never have to live without him.

But wait—

There's a voice.

A voice?

There can't be. Derrick is not speaking. Massie is not speaking. There is no one left to make any noises… but there's a voice.

What is it saying?

" _Ladies and gentlemen_!" it shouts, nervous, shaking, panicky. " _May I present to you the Victors of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games, Massie Block, District One, and Derrick Harrington, District Four_!"

Derrick's already spitting his berries out, his hands slapping at her back to get her to do the same. Three purple fruits tumble off her tongue and onto the stained grass between them. She coughs and chokes and gags like there are more in her mouth when there aren't and Derrick holds her tight against him, murmuring things like _thank god thank god thank god I love you I love you I love you you're so stupid_.

She buries her head in his chest, breathing in deep and heavy, and waits for the hovercraft to come and take them away.

 **...**

 _ **present day**_

Myner leaves her with a few parting words of wisdom, a thinly-veiled threat, and tomorrow's newspaper.

She's crying too hard to make sense of any of it, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out just what it means. She failed. The test her father and Cam were prepping her for… she failed it. She failed it when she threw up in the bathroom, when she wouldn't let the Head Peacekeeper feel her up, when she kissed Derrick in the garden, when she started crying in this room.

She begged and pleaded, sobbed and raged, but none of it mattered to him. Even though she failed in front of him, even though all of the Capitol's hard work to keep her sane fell through, he did not seem to care. He relished in it, actually, _amused_ by her tears. As long as she kept her act together in public, she could fall apart in private all she wanted, he'd told her, but there would always be a cost.

Everything comes with a price.

"I don't want to live in a world without you," he'd mocked her. "Stay in line and you won't have to. Do as I say and he lives."

"Do I get to see him?" she asked.

"Sure you do. During Capitol appearances and on television. You don't live in the same district, honey. You would never be able to be together."

"But… but my mother and my father—"

"Arrangements were made for that," Myner explained. "William proved his worth to me and I gave him what he desired, but he was more… _willing_ than you."

"Do I still have to act like I hate him?"

"I've watched you this whole time, my dear," Myner said, tucking her hair behind her ear in a manner that reeked of condescension. "I'm afraid you are not _that_ good of an actress. And why would you need to be, when the treatment you received merely… _reinforced_ feelings you already had?"

Massie blinked. "What?"

Myner smiled. "Have you considered your love was consequential? Now that the Games are over, maybe the truth has come to light. Maybe you never truly loved him in the first place. Maybe it was just a matter of your crazy, girlish brain trying to deal with the horrors you faced." He paused to pat at her cheek, like she was six. "I did try to tell your mentors you were not mentally prepared for the Games, but they would not listen. A shame that your own district let you down."

And then he left her there, drenched in her own tears, shaking shaking shaking after everything she was forced to witness over and over. Because if he didn't like her reaction, he rewound the tape.

Needless to say, he hated most of her responses. She's not sure how she managed to get to this point; she hardly remembers watching the Games, but it's all there in her mind, and for once it's not being confused with anything else.

She tries to kick her shoes off now, tries to curl into a ball. The room is still dimly lit, empty except for her, and the screen shows only the country's seal. Massie reaches down to unstrap her heels but can't get her fingers to work properly, hands shaking and eyes blurry. Her head keeps replaying those horrendous words Myner had said to her.

 _Maybe you never truly loved him in the first place._

 _A shame your own district let you down._

 _Maybe you never truly loved him in the first place._

 _A shame your own district let you down._

 _Maybe you never truly loved him in the first place._

 _A shame—_

She can't free her feet and now it feels like her cute strappy sandals are digging into her skin, are cutting off all circulation, and she hates them, she hates them, she _hates them_ —

Her heel stabs the front page of tomorrow's newspaper, ripping a hole right above the headline, _HURRICANE ALONG THE COAST OF DISTRICT FOUR WRECKS ISLAND HOMES_.

Beneath it, the sub-headline reads, _Brother of Derrick Harrington, Victor, Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games, amongst the casualties_. If she reads the rest of the story, and she won't, she'll find out that none of Derrick's brother's family survived. Not his wife, not little Kai, or Chase, or Russ. The only Harringtons left alive are himself and his father.

It's a punishment, Massie knows, because she's getting threatened with those, too. It's a punishment for taking her away from the Peacekeeper, for spending several hours with her in the garden, for letting her take his coat. It's a punishment because he had something else he should be doing at that time and he ditched it for her.

So, really, this is all her fault.

Everything is. Just because of those berries.

Her body count can add four more. Eleven now. Impressive.

 _And_ , a little, traitorous voice whispers, because she is not above rotten thoughts, there is a chance she doesn't even like him at all, now that they're out of the arena. That he'd been something to latch onto. That he'd been a distraction. Like Kemp was. She hadn't really liked Kemp, Myner told her, and that much she can agree with him on. She hated everything he was towards the end. Couldn't find a single redeemable quality in him to hold onto. He was her pre-Games person; she loved him in training, in the moments that led up to the arena. Derrick was her Games person; she loved him in the arena, a little bit before, and the few days that followed her extraction. Now she needed to find a post-Games person, because, apparently, she defined herself by the boys around her.

Massie wraps her arms around herself, tries to slow her tears down. It doesn't work. They just come harder and faster, and she can't stop looking at that headline, can't stop feeling like her feet are going to fall off, can't stop can't stop can't stop.

She wants Derrick's jacket back, but Myner took it.

She wants to go home, but she doesn't know what that is. Is it One? Is it Derrick? Does it even exist?

She loves him, right? She loves him.

Where are those letters when she needs them?

Can she recall anything from them? Anything that is true?

 _Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me_. Her, too, she thinks.

 _I love you. I miss you._ Her, too, she thinks. Her, too, she thinks.

 _Maybe you never truly loved him in the first place._ Wrong wrong wrong.

 _I've loved you this whole time too and it took me much longer than you to figure it out and now that I have I'm not letting a bunch of mutts or the stupid Hunger Games take that away from me!_ Focus on that. Focus on that. Focus on that.

You said that, Massie. You said that with your own mouth. I love you. I've loved you this whole time. The Hunger Games can't take that away from me. The Hunger Games can't take that away from me.

 _Either we leave this arena together or we don't leave it at all_.

Massie would never say shit like this unless she _meant_ it. She was not in the Games by accident. She volunteered. She was the best. She could've won it all on her own if she wanted. She would not throw that away unless it mattered. Unless _he_ mattered.

No one had ever mattered until him. No one.

The Hunger Games can't take that away from me. I won't let them. I'm not letting them. I love you. I've loved you this whole time.

She takes a deep, shaky breath. Just do what he says. Just do what he says. Forget about everything else. He's just trying to confuse you. If you do what he wants, if you _prove_ to him that you're worth it, he'll give you what you want. You're his goddaughter after all. He's just… he just has to make it seem like you aren't getting special treatment. That's all. That's all. That's all.

"Hey," someone says on her left. "Massie, right?"

She lifts her head, meets the brown-eyed gaze of Todd Lyons, and nods. It's a dead action. She doesn't even feel herself do it, focused on things she's trying to avoid. Because terrible things are leeches, and they suck everything good away. They stay and they stay and they stay, even when you want them to leave.

"Hey," he says again. "Don't listen to a word that man says. He's a manipulator."

"How long have you been here?" she croaks. She can't find it in herself to be embarrassed by the sound of her utter defeat.

"The whole time," Todd answers. "I slipped in the back when Fawn left."

"Great." Now she made a fool of herself in front of _two_ people. Excellent.

"If it means anything to you," Todd begins, and Massie listens, but her attention is mainly on the two deep scars splitting his nose and bisecting his eyebrow, meeting at puncture wounds at his temple, "I don't think you hate him. There's no way. I've seen married couples act less in love than you two do. He's just trying to get you to second guess yourself."

That's nice. She's not so sure, and she knows herself, and she knows Derrick. Todd Lyons knows neither of them, but he knows this much. Interesting.

"But—" She stops, gnawing at her lower lip. "We've only ever known each other in the arena. I don't… what if he's right? What if I just projected—"

"Do not let that seed of doubt grow," Todd interrupts. "Do not let anything that he's done for you—everything you've done for _each other_ —mean nothing. That's what Cole wants. Do not give it to him. Do not let him win."

"I _can't_ ," Massie bursts out, because in all the effort she's taken to focus on things that would help her, she's managed to focus on the thing that's destroying her from the inside out. She wants to throw up, wants to sleep, wants to _die_. Wants whatever Josh gave her and the trackerjacker honey to be removed from her system. Wants to go back to yesterday where she can try this all again and do it right. "It's in my head now. It all is. What if it _was_ only because of the arena? What if it _was_ circumstantial? What if—"

"You'd have picked _Derrick_ out of all of those boys?" Todd asks and he kind of makes it sound like she chose the wrong one, like there was a better option when there obviously wasn't. "What made him any different than the others? Why not stick with Kemp, who you have a history with? Why not choose Landon, who was more your speed with killing than Derrick? Why him?"

The answer is easy: "Because he believed in me."

"And you believed in him," Todd replies. "You just watched your Games. Did you kill anyone for Kemp? Did you even _care_ about Kemp?"

"No." Her voice is small, like her body, bundled into itself. "I… there was a time when I did, I saw it, before he… before he threatened Derrick, after I killed Twelve."

"I don't know you that well and I'm just going off of what I've seen, but that's a bunch of bullshit." Todd stretches his arms out, cracking his back, and then leans forward to remove Massie's shoes. When her feet are free, she feels lighter. "You let Kemp boss you around. You said it yourself: you loved Derrick the whole time. I didn't see you fussing over Kemp the way you did him. I don't see you crying right now over Kemp. All I see is someone trying to confuse you and succeeding. Don't let him."

Massie presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, undoubtedly ruining what remains of her makeup, if there is any. She takes another deep, deep breath, trying to find a sense of purpose. Trying to find herself. All that's there is jitters and paranoia and that nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, she hated—

 _No_.

"I've loved you this whole time," she mumbles, envisioning the boy and his smile, and his hair, and his eyes, and everything the Capitol magazines and shows rave about. But they don't rave about his selfless personality, or how he made her feel safe, both in the arena and today, however long ago that was, or his genuine kindness and loyalty to Ripple. They don't talk about the _important_ things, the things Massie knows that no one else does. "I'm not letting the stupid Hunger Games take that away from me."

But they're trying to, aren't they? The Hunger Games are trying to take that away from her. Why? Why why why why _WHY_? She did what they asked. She killed like she was supposed to. She _won_ , for god's sake, _she won_. Why does it feel like she's lost?

"That's what they do," Todd Lyons says, and he's very nice, this man who won eleven years ago, who she knows is not pleased to be sitting in the semi-dark with her. "The Victor doesn't win, Massie. It's all an act. The games keep going, the Reapings never stop, and the real winners… the real winners are the ones who die."

Massie hiccoughs. "That can't be right."

"You were born in One," Todd tells her. She knows this. Everyone knows this. "I was born in Twelve. You love the Games"—she wants to tell him she doesn't, not anymore, that she stopped loving them the second she watched (both in that arena and today, over and over) a twelve year old get butchered to death, but can't find the words—"and I don't. But it always comes down to the same thing, whether you are from a Career district or an outlier: We're still alive and we're suffering all the same, even with our riches and our fame and our notoriety. _We_ lose. We lose because we still have to play the Game."

 _I've loved you this whole time and it took me much longer than you to figure it out and now that I have I'm not letting a bunch of mutts or the stupid Hunger Games take that away from me_.

But she is. Sitting here, listening to everything Myner said, fighting everything Todd Lyons is saying… she's letting the Hunger Games win. She's _been_ letting the Hunger Games win.

They've been making her think it was her own doing. Ignoring the letters. Hating Derrick. Not listening to a single word Cam or her father had to say. Taking too many showers and cutting her hair and getting tired over every little thing because she's _fighting it_ … None of this was of her own choosing. She never made that decision. Between her real Recap—oh, she saw that, too, and that was a glorified shitshow, despite the interest many Capitolites now had for a crazy, traumatized teen—and now, the Capitol, and her president, and her father, and, _holy shit_ , her _brother_ —they made decisions for her. They decided she was too crazy to function. They decided she needed her memories altered (and for what? What was that reasoning?) They made her hate him. They twisted her memories so she thought Derrick was a threat, was someone who wanted to kill her, and made _her_ want to kill him. None of this was her. The last decision she ever made on her own… it was those berries.

And those berries, and her attachment to Derrick and his to her… they're giving heat to a rebellion that's been sitting dormant for years, if she recalls correctly. She's given them—what is it?—she's given them _hope_ , because two volunteers from Career districts were willing to break all the rules so they didn't have to live without each other. The daughter of their most beloved Victor was willing to throw caution to the wind, even after she explicitly expressed her love for the Hunger Games. The honor it brought. The pride.

It was selfish. All of it. She didn't know about the rebellion until much later. They had to have known that. No one in One or Two would ever agree, not when they are treated so kindly by the Capitol. Not when their poor are rich compared to everyone else's.

To prove a point, to kill that hope she's given them all, Myner is taking away the one thing she wants. The _only_ thing she's ever allowed herself to want. The only decision she's ever made for herself and herself alone. It's the selfishness in her again. She doesn't care for the rebellion, but she has to, sort of, because he's manipulating her and hurting Derrick and breaking everything she is because she accidentally became something to them.

Her tears have dried by the time she's drawn this conclusion. She wipes her hand beneath her nose, comes back with snot, and doesn't feel the tiniest bit guilty for wiping it on the armrest of this chair she's in.

Todd is still next to her, watching her closely, practically analyzing her like he can read her every thought. He might be able to, actually. She's having a hard time concealing her emotions these days. They're probably written all over her face. They were in that arena.

Their eyes meet, and the intensity in his brown depths makes her gasp. Makes her remember. "You said you're from Twelve?"

"Yeah," he answers. "How could you forget that? I'm a _Victor_." He says the word in the same irritating accent as everyone in the Capitol.

"You won when I was, like, six," she retorts. "Excuse me for not remembering everything about you."

He grins. "And here I am, knowing everything about you." He taps her nose.

"Because Cam made you," Massie recalls. Alicia Rivera. Josh Hotz. Todd Lyons. Remember those names. "He must trust you guys a lot if he left crazy me in your hands."

"You're not crazy," Todd replies, "but yes. He does."

"I can't believe you want anything to do with me," Massie forces herself to say. She tries to stay as nonchalant as possible, but finds her heart is racing again, like it did before. "Since I killed your sister."

Todd Lyons, District Twelve, Victor of the Sixty-First Annual Hunger Games.

Claire Lyons, District Twelve, first casualty of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games. An ugly, sloppy kill. A blade slicing her throat. Blood pouring down her neck, staining her white, white skin, turning her shirt a hideous shade of red-brown. A twitch. Dead as she hit the ground.

Massie sees it all—relives it all, for the second time today—as she looks at Todd's face. He's tanner than Claire was, skin more of a light brown than anything else, and his hair is redder, and his jaw is squarer, but she can see that girl in him. In the glint in his eye, in the planes of his cheekbones, in the jut of his bottom lip.

She killed his sister with no remorse, with no care. Just a body she needed to get rid of. _Slash_ , gurgle, blood, turn away, survey the rest of the bloodbath, watch Ripple and Derrick.

She killed his sister and here he is, putting _her_ , Massie's, pieces back together.

 _God_.

"When I was in the arena," Todd says, "my district partner was my best friend's sister. I promised him I wouldn't be the one to kill her, but… when it came down to it, I found out I was a liar." He breathes in sharply through his nose, but never wavers. "It was day fourteen. No one ever expects Twelves to last even one day, but here we both were, two weeks in. There were four tributes left, not counting us."

Massie doesn't know why, but she reaches forward and grabs his hand. He squeezes back, and then paints a gruesome picture.

"It was the Career pack left, obviously, and back then, traditions were upheld. They would not kill each other until the other tributes were gone. Both from Two were still there, the girl from One, and the boy from Four. Apparently District Seven was particularly brutal that year, but they didn't live very long after they killed off One and Four's partners." Todd says this all in monotone, like he's merely narrating something particularly boring, but the skin on his arms is raising goosebumps and he has to grind his teeth to keep them from chattering as he takes breaks between sentences.

Massie grips his hand even tighter, says, "You don't have to," to which he replies, "You need to understand."

"I don't," she argues. She gets it. She gets the lesson he's trying to teach her. She doesn't need to _hear_ it. He doesn't need to relive it.

Todd shakes his head, lets go of her hand, and laces his own fingers together. His knuckles are white. "We were stupid," he continues. "We'd made a fire because it was cold, and I don't remember who was supposed to be on watch, but we both fell asleep. I blame myself. I should have been more careful. I should have…" He breaks off, shakes his head, clenches his jaw.

Massie doesn't know what to do. Just fists her dress in her hands. Counts the tiny lace designs in the hem.

"In Twelve, we mine when we turn eighteen," Todd tells her, which doesn't seem like a necessary part of the story. "I visited with my father once, to see what it was like. I was only sixteen when I went to the Games, so I didn't have much experience with that. But I did know one thing: I was terribly afraid of the dark. And mines are dark." He swallows. "So was the cave the Careers trapped both of us in. They'd managed to sneak up on us and instead of killing us like they should have, they… they rolled a boulder in front of the cave entrance and left us there to starve."

"Oh my god," Massie whispers. "That's… that's…"

"Diabolical? Genius?"

"A real waste of time, actually," she replies, kind of snottily, but she blames that on her stuffed-up nose. "How long would it take for you to starve? Were they just going to sit there and _wait_? Stupid."

Todd chokes out a laugh, the color returning to his cheeks. "I never thought of it like that," he admits. "But… I mentioned I'm afraid of the dark, right?"

Massie nods. Wonders if she should turn the lights on in here.

"So here we were, me and my best friend's sister, in the dark. Tied up. It was fine for a while, I could pretend I was asleep, or something else and just… just let death take me. If it took both of us, I wasn't the one to kill her, you know?"

She hears the _but_ before he says it and she reaches out for him again, placing her hand over his clasped ones. "Then the snake came. I don't know how it slithered through the boulder, but knowing how the Gamemakers work, it probably materialized in the cave just to speed up our deaths. So here I am, in the dark, with a snake, with my district partner, and we are most certainly going to die here, and dying in a cave is the worst way to go. Dying in the _dark_ is my biggest fear, probably, and then—"

"And then you got these scars," Massie guesses, nodding towards his face. "From the snake?"

Todd nods. "I didn't know where it was, but it knew where _I_ was, and it just… it struck. It hurt like a bitch, I remember, and in my panic, I grabbed—I grabbed a rock and I _swung_." His voice breaks. "I don't even remember the rock being there."

Massie closes her eyes, and can almost see it. She doesn't need the rest of the story. Never did, really, because she knew. She'd watched his Games and even at age six, she'd understood. Todd Lyons became a household name that day. Day fourteen. Between that day and the four that followed, Todd became a pretty impressive figure in the Hunger Games world.

He tells the rest of it, and she sees it, playing out in front of her:

Todd swings. He swings and he swings and he swings. But it's not the snake he's hitting, it's his district partner, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She'd only wanted to help him, wanted to get the snake off him, but the snake had disappeared as soon as it mangled Todd's face.

And Todd kills her. Todd keeps hitting her in the head with this rock until blood and guts and probably brain cover his hand and his arm. Splatters all over him.

The cannon sounds. He doesn't know it's for her because he can't see, is confused, the snake's bite was poisonous and the venom racing through his veins is making him see things. Feel things that aren't there.

He drops the rock after a while. Curls up into a ball. Calls out, "Sari?" Gets no answer.

The Gamemakers move the boulder so he can see what he's done. So they can get the body.

Sari is unrecognizable.

Todd can't see straight, but hallucinates his best friend, who shouts and cries and screams and blames him for everything. Todd doesn't utter a single word. Todd doesn't fight back. He takes it all, because it's true, he did promise, he promised not to kill her, but he did, and then he exits the cave.

The hovercraft comes. Takes Sari's body away.

Five tributes remain.

Todd receives a parachute with an antidote for the poison that's slowly killing him, an expensive gift so late in the Games, and he thanks whoever gave it to him, downs it in one go. He does not stop to sleep. To eat. To _breathe_.

He picks up a rock, weighs it in his hand, and spends the next four days hunting down the Careers that trapped him in that cave.

One a day—they are just as unrecognizable as Sari was, heads dented, skulls bashed in, eye sockets full of puss and blood, noses crushed beneath the weight of his anger and his rock.

As day nineteen rises, the last tribute, the boy from Two, dies, and Todd Lyons, age sixteen, District Twelve, is taken out of the arena.

He does his Victory Tour and never returns home.

"I don't think our stories are the same," Massie tells him softly, because he's trembling, even though he tries to hide it.

"We either do what needs to be done or we die in there," Todd says. "It doesn't matter the circumstances or the reasoning. That's the difference between tributes. You murder or you die. Sometimes you murder _and_ you die. You can claim all you want that you'll be honorable, that you'll do the right thing, and then you get in there, and the right thing is not what you said. What you promised. The right thing is trying to live, and trying to live means you need to get rid of the people trying to kill you, and my sister… she was trying to kill you. She shouldn't have gone to the Cornucopia at all, even with her high score. She should've… she should've ran."

"I'm sorry," Massie blurts. She has a feeling she'll be apologizing a lot in the coming months.

"Don't be." Todd blinks, looks up, and sighs. "The last time I saw Claire, she was four. Or maybe she was five. I don't remember. I'd come home for my Tour, feasted with them all, and then got right back on the train." He laughs, low and bitter. "I stayed in the Capitol, where I helped Gamemakers invent plans and mutts and _twists_ for future Games. _You_ should hate _me_. I helped them make those lion mutts that almost killed you and Derrick."

She doesn't. She _can't_. She merely says, "You're always playing the Game."

"Always," he agrees, staring up at the ceiling.

"Have you talked to Derrick like this? Like you're talking to me?" she asks. "Do you… do you know him well?"

It takes a while for Todd to tear his gaze away from the sparkling ceiling tiles. When he meets Massie's eyes, he doesn't look so pale anymore, so haunted. "I talked to him about other things," he answers. "About what he thought was important. About… holding on, when it gets tough. And it will. It really will get tough for him. For both of you."

Massie asks, "What'd he say was important to him?"

"Even after his sister and mother were killed"— _killed_ , he says, like someone murdered them and it wasn't an accident—"even after Myner propositioned him, even after all that… he said you. _You_ are most important to him. And from sitting here with you, and from the look on your face right now, I know he's what's most important to you, too. That's why you can't let Myner get into your head like that. You can't believe anything anyone tells you."

"But I can believe you?"

"You can believe me, and Alicia, and Josh. You can believe your father, and Cam. You can believe everything Derrick tells you." Todd runs a scarred hand through his hair. "You changed things, Massie, whether you meant to or not. Don't let them change you."

 **...**

Somehow Todd finds Alicia, who tuts at Massie, and fixes up her makeup.

She's a little bit more bare-faced than before—Alicia doesn't carry around all the products Jakkob and his team do—but the look is more or less saved. She's made her shadow a bit more smoky, lined the lashes with white to offset the red that rings them, and takes the jewels that survived, lining them along Massie's brows, placing them in the corners of her eyes. Her lipstick remains that pinky-red, her foundation is a touch too dark, but Alicia works with it, and her highlight makes her face sharp and dangerous.

Todd straps Massie's shoes back on, pinches her cheeks like an annoying older brother ( _Cam_ ) would, and escorts her back into the party.

And unfortunately for Massie, the party is still in full swing, with no signs of stopping.

Alicia pats her shoulder, Todd squeezes her hip, and then they are gone.

Massie takes the time to survey the crowd, to see if she recognizes anyone. Spots many of her sponsors, who she should go talk to. Spots her father, no longer at Myner's side, staring quizzically up the stairs. Spots Derrick, in the middle of the ballroom with hands in his ha—

" _Hi_!" a tiny blonde person chirps, sliding right in front of her, blocking her view.

Massie is too tired—from the crying, from merely _existing_ —to question this, does not bother to look around her to see Derrick, and returns the greeting. "Hello," she says pleasantly. "How are you?"

"I'm good. I'm Kristen," says Kristen Gregory, who Massie finally places after five blinks. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Kristen Gregory is a hugger, it seems, and Massie returns it, feeling oddly out of place and jumbled. "You too," she replies, patting the girl's back. And it is—or it would be, if Massie could just focus on being more than exhausted—because Kristen is a little bit of a legacy, too, having electrocuted all of her tributes in the arena.

District Three kids are ruthless like that.

"Wanna come back with me to my table?" Kristen asks. "I swiped some incredible sauvignon blanc from the bar and I can't drink it all by myself." She pauses, laughs. "I mean, I _can_ , don't get me wrong, but I'd love to share it with you."

Massie can't remember if Cam warned her against Kristen Gregory, and doesn't really care, if she's honest. She wants to get away from this party, wants to _sit_ , so she nods, and follows the girl back to her table, marveling over the metallic grey jumpsuit she's paired with brightly colored heels.

And it's not like she's lying. At the table, she's got a huge bottle of white wine, uncorked but not touched, a wine glass at its side. It's like she was about to pour some before she noticed Massie and shot up to get her before…

Before what?

But Massie doesn't ask, already decides she doesn't want to know, and slides into the seat next to her.

In a matter of minutes, she has a too-full glass of wine in front of her. She doesn't question it, doesn't question anything, and does what she's probably not supposed to. She downs it.

Kristen's glass is half empty when she asks, "How are you faring?"

Massie hasn't eaten anything besides that sandwich earlier. Besides the tiny appetizers she merely nibbled on, body too strung out and nerves too intense to allow her to fill her stomach. The alcohol goes to her head, makes everything spin a little. "I wish it were over," she admits. Maybe she shouldn't have.

She seems harmless enough, Kristen, so she doesn't care, and then Kristen says, "I understand. I've been there too," and it's… it's sincere. Real.

"Yeah," Massie replies.

She turns away from Kristen, from her nice face and her sunny disposition, and watches the party. She should definitely be out there, since this thing is for her, since there are so many people here who want to talk to her, who want to know what she's about. All she's done is vomit, dance with maybe three of them, try to kill one, leave, cry for hours. She's done nothing right, _nothing_ , and yet it's been calm. Something has got to give, right?

Maybe it's already happened.

Maybe her being here is all it is.

Maybe her punishment is this.

She meets Myner's eyes. He smiles at her, genuine with a bit of a threat in the corners of his lips, and Massie fights to keep her face neutral.

Behind him, a door opens.

Kristen tries to get her attention, calls her name, says _Massie_ with enough urgency she should turn around, but she can't.

She _can't._

She can't because Derrick stumbles out of that room, the room the door hid, his hair a mess, his cheeks flushed.

She feels her heart race, suddenly wildly upset, and she brings her wine glass to her mouth again. The wine is drier than she remembers, but it gives her strength, energy, and then… and then it's not enough.

Not enough, because after him comes Cam, who is beautiful and disheveled, pushing his sleeves back up. He says something to Derrick, who laughs, and then reaches out to help him, knotting the tie at his neck.

Everyone is watching them, and then everyone is watching Massie, and Kristen is saying her name again, and again, and again, and somehow Todd is in her line of vision, but she's able to see right past him.

And then comes someone else. Someone who makes Massie's blood boil, someone who made her so, so angry weeks ago, when she saw her on that television screen, looking like the dream she looks now.

Massie wants to snap her wine glass. Wants to throw something. Wants to _break_ something.

She doesn't though. She drinks even more, reaching out blindly for the bottle when she empties her glass, and watches with narrowed eyes as Jamie Marvil touches both Cam and Derrick like she owns them, like they're _hers_.

She even has the audacity to style her hair the same way Massie did the night of her Recap.

Massie doesn't bother with the glass this time, drinks straight from the bottle.

"Massie," Kristen says, breaking through the roaring in her ears. "Massie, look at me. Massie, I can explain to you what that is. Don't let… don't let it all get to you. He wants you to—"

Who wants her to? What does he want?

What is real and what is not?

Is this real? Is Derrick and Cam and Jamie together—is that what's real? Has that always been what was real?

Or is it what happened in the Games? Is that real? Is _I've loved you this whole goddamn time. It's like I didn't know there was something missing from my life before you walked into it. If this is all I'm allowed to have with you, it's enough. It's enough because I never thought I would have this in the first place, never thought I'd find someone I could—someone like you_ … is that what's real?

Massie chugs. She chugs and chugs and chugs, and ignores the stinging in her eyes, ignores Kristen trying to talk to her, ignores Josh, who is now sitting on her other side, trying to wrestle the wine bottle from her hands.

And to make matters worse…

 _Of course_ , to make matters worse, President Myner stands up.

He stands up and he taps a fork against his champagne flute and he gives a _fucking speech_.

She's not staring at him, though, she's staring at Derrick, who all but shoves Jamie off of him when they lock eyes. He shakes his head as subtly as he can, looks all of the world like he's telling her he'll explain later, but Massie can't stop seeing that stupid girl's hands all over him. _Cam's_ hands all over him.

She may be sick.

She's going to throw up.

How could she have been so wrong? How could she have thought… They didn't love each other, Cole was right. It was just a matter of circumstance.

 _Circumstance_. What an odd word.

"Stop that right now, Massie," Josh hisses in her ear. " _Stop_. You don't know anything. You don't understand. He's doing this on purpose. He wants you to see this. He wants you to think something is happening when it's not. Believe me, Massie, I know. I know better than you think I do. You just need to _stop_ —"

Stop what?

Doesn't she not like him? Doesn't she hate him? Didn't he just… just use her?

No, she loves him, doesn't she? She does. She loves him. He loves her. Without him, she'd be nothing. She mattered to him. She _matters_ to him.

But if she matters, why is he coming out of bedrooms with Cam _and_ Jamie Marvil? With her so-called _brother_ and a socialite _witch_? They should be together, in Four, because that's what she deserves, that's what her godfather, her president, would give her, if it was real. He's only ever been looking out for her. Why wouldn't he? He knows her best. He knows her family. He knows what's good for her.

And Derrick… Derrick cannot be good for her, if he's going to do things like this.

Right?

Right?

 _Right?_

"I'm _trying_ ," Josh growls, and Massie twists. He's not talking to her, but rather Cam, from across the room, who's… who's gesturing wildly and staring wide-eyed at the two of them. "She's _not listening_!"

Kristen's fingers are on her back, foreign and warm. Massie swats at them. "Hey, do you want to go outside, maybe? It's hot in here."

Her head hurts. Her head is _swimming_ , actually. She has to blink to keep the room in focus, has to press her hand down on Josh's to keep herself here. To keep herself present. And for all his aggression earlier, for all he did to pull her out of that jacket, he flips his palm over and laces their fingers together.

An anchor. He's giving her an anchor.

But what is she anchoring herself to? _This_? This is miserable. This is… this is everything she never deserved. She's a _Victor_! She's supposed to _win_.

 _We lose because we still have to play the Game_ , she hears Todd say in her mind. That felt like forever ago.

So is she a winner? Is she a loser? She didn't kill all those people to feel like this. She didn't she didn't she didn't.

She swallows just as Cole Myner says, "And I would like to thank you all for coming together to celebrate my goddaughter! I know she will steal your hearts just as she has stolen mine!"

The applause sounds, loud and raucous, and the only people who are not surprised by this announcement are Cam and William.

Josh lets go of her hand suddenly, then thinks better of it and tries to grab it back.

Kristen gasps audibly behind her.

Derrick says the word _goddaughter_ like it's a disease, like it's a curse, and even though he whispers it, even though he _mouths_ it, Massie hears it loud and clear like he's yelling.

And Myner… Myner captures her gaze again, tips his champagne glass towards her, and smiles. All she can do is smile back.

 **...**

Cam is the first one to find her.

Cam is the first one to find her, and she takes one look at his flushed cheeks, his swollen lips, and the way that his hair looks like it's been tugged too far to the right, and she punches him straight in the face.

He lets her.

 **...**

Josh pulls her off him, glares, and palms Cam's cheeks. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says, swatting at his hands. "Massie's got a mean right hook, that's all."

"Mean right hook, sure," Josh mutters. "You've got one hell of a bruise. How are we supposed to explain _this_ to Lulu tomorrow?"

Cam shrugs, nonplussed. "She likes when I'm all banged up, so it's—it's fine."

Josh frowns, running his fingers through Cam's dark hair. " _She_ likes being the one doing the banging up, Cam," he says. "She wants you to be perfect when she sees you."

"And I will be," Cam promises. "I'll have Jakkob touch it up and then make sure she gets me in the same spot on the off chance it fades."

There is a tick in Josh's jaw. He doesn't reply, stares at Cam's face, massages his scalp.

Massie feels like she's interrupting something just by standing there, but she's angry and confused enough to snap, " _What_?"

"You are _the worst_ ," Josh spits at her, spinning around swiftly. "Like, on a scale from one to ten, ten being the stupidest person I know, you're a fifteen."

" _Josh_ ," Cam warns.

"Don't _Josh_ me," that very man hisses. "When I agreed to help you with her, I thought she'd be less of a problem case, but here she is, ruining literally fucking _everything_."

"I don't even know you," Massie shoots back at him. "You have no right to say that about me."

"I don't? You're that man's _goddaughter_ , and I'm—I'm supposed to make sure you survive this bullshit? How am I supposed to know you're not playing me, too, like he's playing me? Like he's playing everyone? How am I to know this isn't just a _game_ to you?"

"He ruined my life!" Massie snaps back. "I don't—I don't know what's real and what's not, I don't know who to trust, I don't… I don't…" She whirls away from him, points a finger at Cam, and exclaims, " _Why didn't you tell me_?"

"I _tried_!" Cam shouts back. "I tried, but it's so fucking hard when I don't know what frame of mind you're in, or what you believe and what you don't—"

"No," Massie hisses, taking a step forward. Josh shoots in between them, like he's afraid she's a threat, like she's really going to _hurt_ Cam. She slaps his chest, digging her nails into the skin there. "Why didn't you tell me you're my _brother_? Why did I have to find out _back there_?"

Josh freezes, hand pathetically in the air where he was about to grab Massie's wrist.

Cam looks away from her, at the stars, and takes a breath. "I found out yesterday," he tells her. "William and I…" He sounds bitter as he says the name, and she realizes he hasn't spent that much time in her father's presence recently. "We thought it'd be best to tell you after this was over. On your Tour."

"Yeah, well, Myner thought it'd be nice to tell me _my family_ decided fucking with my mind was my best option," she retorts icily, "so, yeah, thanks for that."

"He was going to kill you," Cam replies loudly, "because you didn't know how to play the game!"

"It's always the same with all of you!" Massie snaps. "Play the game play the game play the game! Has it ever occurred to you that _I don't want to_?"

"It doesn't matter what you want," her _brother_ shoots back. "You're not allowed to want anything once you win. You do what the Capitol wants, when they want, how they want it. You're not even a person anymore!"

She shakes her head back and forth and back and forth and back and forth so hard she gives herself whiplash. "You should have let him kill me," she says quietly, tired all of a sudden.

"No," says someone who is not Cam, who is not Josh, who is—who is standing behind her, a million miles away. And the hurt she hears in his voice, the disbelief… she's never felt more guilty.

Because what had she said? What had she begged him to do?

 _I don't want to live in a world without you._

 _Wherever you go, I go._

He'd been willing to die for her. He'd wanted to, and she couldn't bear it, not in the arena, so she killed all those mutts, and she made him almost eat deadly berries because she didn't want to have to live without him, and now—

Now she's saying things like _you should have let him kill me_.

Now she doesn't know who she is, not really, not even with the memory bursts and the crying and the rewatch of her Games. Doesn't even know if she really, truly loves him, or if she used him. Because despite everything Todd said, she let that kernel of doubt grow, let what she was forced to see, what Myner wanted her to know, build something around her. Something that might not even be true.

She wraps her arms around herself and turns, because even though she doesn't know doesn't know doesn't know, he deserves more than her back. More than her back and _you should have let him kill me_.

She looks at him.

She looks at him, and she _aches_.

She looks at him, and it's like she didn't see him however many hours ago, didn't taste him, didn't hold him.

She looks at him, and he looks at her, and he says, "You _can't_." His voice breaks.

She looks at him, and he looks at her, and he says, "You can't mean that."

And then—

And then everything she'd been confused about earlier, every word that didn't make sense but did, everything she saw and didn't see, everything blatant and everything implied… it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter.

It does't matter because she's running,

it doesn't matter because he's catching her,

and it doesn't matter because she's burying her face in his neck, all but sobbing _I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_ into his collarbone.

Now she's really giving herself whiplash.

Derrick runs his hands up and down her back, the legs she wrapped around his waist holding her up on all their own, and murmurs, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

"I didn't mean it," she whispers.

"I know," he says, but it sounds like he doesn't. Not really.

She sniffs.

"Is this, uh, normal for her?" Josh asks incredulously.

 _No_ , she wants to say, but Cam answers, "It is now."

"What _happened_?"

Massie ignores the conversation behind her, pulls her face away from Derrick, who smells like stupid Jamie Marvil, and a bit like Cam, and nothing like himself. She had forgotten in the time it'd been that he didn't really look like himself either, all Capitol perfect, golden and green and bronzed to perfection, and she misses the little things she'd liked so much in the arena.

The tiny cut he'd had by his temple, courtesy of Kemp.

That split lip, the one that always reopened when he smiled.

Weirdly enough, the way he'd looked, all sweaty and tired, nothing like the very put-together man inches in front of her.

She frowns.

He presses their noses together, eyes dancing.

"I have a lot to explain to you," he murmurs. She watches his mouth.

"Me too," she says, because she remembers the look on his face when Myner said _goddaughter. "_ Not right now. I need…" She stops, swallows, because she has no insane urge to kill him, but she has something else, something worse. She has doubt. Steadily growing doubt. "I need you to tell me something real again."

"Easy," he says, just as soft. "I lov—"

"No," she interrupts. "Something… something that no one else knows. Something they can't—can't take away from me."

Derrick blinks, mouth twisting, brows furrowing. "The night Ripple died," he starts, slowly, purposefully, making eye contact with her that leaves her cheeks flushed and her heart racing, "when that cannon went off, and you'd been dragged away by Skye, I thought it was for me."

"What?" she asks. "Why?"

"Because I wasn't sure who it was for, and a part of me thought—I thought it was for you." He lets out a shaky breath, like this is affecting him now. "And a part of me died right there, thinking about how you could be gone, and not just gone away from me gone, but gone _forever_ gone, and I hadn't been able to tell you how I felt about you."

Massie traces the lines of his lips and he kisses her index finger, smiling softly when she giggles at the sensation. Not necessarily the appropriate reaction. "Really?"

"Really," he says, shifting her so he can hold her up with his hands, wrapped around the bottom of her dress, which he smooths over her butt. "I told you I loved you this whole time. I wasn't lying. I knew I loved you when I found you on that rooftop." He nudges at her chin with his nose to get her to lower her face. "Wanna hear something else real? A secret?"

"Mhm."

Against her mouth, which he's lined up with his, he murmurs, "I went up on that rooftop every night, and every night I hoped you'd be there, too."

She laughs, feeling more like herself than she has in… a while, honestly. "We talked every day," she reminds him. "If you wanted to meet on the roof, you could have just suggested it."

"And where's the fun in that?" he questions.

Their faces are so close he doesn't have to do much to coax her lips onto his, and just as he's pressing what she is sure is the best kiss they've ever shared, all teasing and tantalizing and slow, _so_ slow, a booming voice interrupts them, and Cam and Josh, who are still talking amongst themselves.

"Before the four of you blow your spots up," this voice begins, "maybe we should take this elsewhere."

Derrick ignores her, pulling Massie's bottom lip into his mouth and sucking, humming as she runs her fingers through his hair.

" _Harrington_ , that means you too," the voice snaps. "It means you _especially_."

Massie swallows her disappointed groan when he pulls away, turning his face to look at the newcomer. "Sorry, Ang."

"Come on," this Ang orders. "Let's talk elsewhere."

"I can't," says Massie, still looking at Derrick's profile. She doesn't want to look away. "My Tour starts tomorrow."

"Last I checked it was still today," Ang returns easily. "I'm sure you can spare a few hours, Massie Block."

She finally turns her head, taking in this woman for the first time. She is tall and willowy, with a head full of dark, dark hair, curly and kind of unmanageable. Her face is pinched in annoyance, probably because of her.

"Can I, though?" Massie questions, and it's not in a rude sort of way. She's genuinely curious. This party tonight is for her, and she's left it time and time again. Does she have the opportunity to escape one more time?

Ang nods. "It's basically over," she tells her. "Most of the Victors are boarding their trains now."

"Oh."

"Come along, then," Ang commands, turning on her heel like they're going to follow her. "We haven't much time."

And they do follow her. At least Cam and Josh do, shuffling in her wake.

It takes Massie and Derrick another second or two.

"Who is that?" she asks him, feet back on the ground.

Derrick takes her hand, inspects it, and then holds it tightly in his own. "Angela Sawyer."

"Right," Massie says, like she's supposed to know who Angela Sawyer is.

"She's…" Derrick shakes his head, deciding against it. "She'll tell you who she is, but just be warned: We don't really get along."

"Then why are we going to talk with her?"

Derrick grimaces. "You'll see."


	11. Part Eleven: Strength

_**Sorry for the delay on this! Work had an art benefit this Wednesday and I've been lacking on the sleep since then. I literally woke up today at 2:45pm. Who am I? I wasted the whole day. I hate this.**_

 _ **A little warning for this chapter: the "T" rating goes up pretty strong, but I don't think it makes it to what "M" entails.**_

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Eleven_

* * *

 **strength | streNG(k)TH  
** noun  
 _the emotional or mental qualities necessary in dealing with situations or events that are distressing or difficult_  
synonyms: resilience, backbone, spirit

* * *

It really is a beautiful night.

The stars wink above the world, bright and full, and there is not a cloud in the sky. Massie would consider this, maybe even stand still and live in it, but she's angry, _so angry_ , that none of this registers. Not the cold as it seeps into her bones, or the whimsical whistle of the wind as it flirts with the ends of her hair.

No, all she sees is red, and the train station as it looms closer.

A rebellion meeting. They took her to a _rebellion meeting_. Why does everyone think she's suddenly part of this when she's not? She did _nothing_ for their cause, nothing deliberate, and she's not going to start now. Let them use her selfish actions for what they're not, sure, but _do not incorporate her in it_. She doesn't care.

Not even after Angela's impassioned speech, not even after the other Victors involved—Cam's friends—told her the things that happened to them, not even after Derrick—

She grits her teeth and presses on, feet aching in her shoes. She ignores that sting the same way she ignores the calling of her name behind her. She has to get on that train, has to do what is expected of her, has to tour the country.

If she does everything right, maybe, just maybe…

She can't be part of their rebellion. She _can't_.

A hand grabs her elbow and tugs. She trips into a turtleneck and strong chest and she wants to _get away_. He doesn't let her.

"Massie," Derrick says, Derrick _pleads_.

She looks at him, at his beautiful face, and his beautiful eyes, and the way he is gazing at her like a sad, beaten down puppy, and she—

She slaps him.

The sound seems to echo in the silence around them.

Pink colors his cheek, evolving into an angry scarlet, her handprint shining against his skin. He blinks at her, surprised, and reaches up to touch her wrist. She lets him, confused by her own actions. "I'm _not_ ," she starts. "I _didn't_ …"

She averts her gaze, refusing to be pulled in by the look on his face, and finally settles on, "Pull that shit with me again and I'll do more than slap you."

She doesn't mean it. She doesn't want him to realize she doesn't mean it.

Derrick drops her hand, brings his palms up to hold her cheeks, and murmurs, " _Massie_."

"Stop saying my name," she forces out.

His eyes sparkle—she really hates that—and he says it again, her name, because he knows for some odd reason it has an affect on her. She breathes sharply and loudly through her nose, big inhale, big exhale, and pushes all of her weight into her heels. She will _not_ let him win by being kind, and pretty, and, and, and—and _himself_.

God, it takes all of her resolve not to fall into him right now.

 _All of it_.

The Capitol really fucked her up, didn't it? Or maybe it's not even their fault, maybe _she_ fucked herself up.

It doesn't matter who did it, though, because everything she'd been mad about seems to evaporate: all the stories and the words, all the information, all the insinuations. Just one look from him, just one measly look, and she'd agree to just about anything. What happened to the girl that wanted to kill him? She's gone now. Withered away, like flowers in the winter. Massie misses her.

She scrounges her up, pieces of her at least, and finds that it's not the murderous version of herself she misses. It's the one that had thoughts, opinions, feelings all her own. The one… the one that entered that arena, bright-eyed and ready for anything. The girl who didn't rely too heavily on a boy, no matter the circumstance.

 _That_ girl is in her somewhere, hiding, forced away. She's the one that says, "I do not want to be part of the rebellion. I am _not_ part of the rebellion. I didn't do anything for it."

"Massie," Derrick begins, and he wants to say more. She sees him form the words, but she beats him to the punch, not eager to feel guilty about her own wants. She only just started getting those back.

"I only wanted you," she tells him and she's so annoyed it sounds like a threat. He doesn't even falter at her tone, merely grins, fucking _glowing_ at this revelation. "I only _want_ you. I'm not doing a single thing they tell me to do. I am not… not a rebel, not a sympathizer. I am nothing. Nothing but yours."

He tugs at her hair, twisting it around his fingers, and tucking it behind her ear. "And I am yours," he whispers back, soft, strong, definite, "and I want you, too, but if he's… but with the world the way it is, we can't have each other the way we want. We can't have _anything_ we want."

"If I do everything right," she insists, echoing her previous thoughts, "maybe I—we can. Maybe…"

"Maybe isn't enough, Massie," he says roughly. "I'm not holding on to _maybe_."

There is something so terrible about knowing this.

"I told you," Josh Hotz snaps on his way past, not even bothering to apologize as he purposely slams his shoulder against hers. Guess their short-lived friendship is over. Derrick covers the spot with his palm. "She's too much of a Capitol _darling_ to even consider it. Drop her, Derrick. She's not worth it."

Derrick stiffens. "Don't recall asking for your opinion."

Josh smirks, spinning around. "You didn't, but no one ever _asks_ for an opinion, do they?"

"I wish they had asked Sage to come tonight instead of you."

That smarmy grin falters so quickly it's startling, and Josh's handsome face sobers. Massie doesn't think she likes him much, but she decides she doesn't like him looking sad. She chalks it up to not wanting to feel bad for him.

"There's no one here to torture her with," he replies easily, like that isn't the worst sentence Massie has ever heard. "There's nothing entertaining about someone so unfazed by this life of ours." He forces his mouth up in amusement, but it comes out as a grimace. "Grin and bear it, am I right, Massie?"

"Shut it," Derrick hisses.

"Come on," Josh goads, "she's got to know. She's his _goddaughter_ , after all… tell me, Massie, did he ask what you thought of him turning your boy toy into a high-end prosti—"

"Shut _up_ ," Derrick interrupts, loud and powerful.

Massie watches their argument with wide eyes, hardly hearing any of the insults Josh has thrown her way. Derrick does not have his attention on her anymore, but he's never once let go of her. He squeezes her hip, where he's hooked his fingers, digging into her like a lifeline.

"There's no use in pretending it's not happening," Josh advises sagely. He's such a dick. "I've tried. I _know_. It's always happening, it will always happen, and you can't stop it." He smiles again, successfully this time. It is thin and forced and _mean_. He rakes his gaze over Massie, picking her apart, searching her, and adds, "Maybe if more terrible things happen to her she'll care more. It has to be personal for her, doesn't it? Can't believe she even found it in herself to like you, D. She clearly only likes herself."

Massie lurches forward to grab Derrick before he can throw himself at Josh, his body shaking with the intensity of his anger. _Anger problems_ , she remembers thinking about him, in her hospital bed. She wonders very idly, holding him around the middle, what would happen if she just… let go.

Who would win this fight? Derrick, big and strong, or Josh, lean and sculpted, built like a swimmer?

That thought vanishes as her boy's voice rumbles in his chest, beneath her ear. "Just wondering," he says slowly, sliding his large hand down her dress to rest at her lower back, "what you think your fucking problem is."

Josh snorts. "You're not normally this dumb," he replies. "My _problem_ is _her_." He thrusts a thumb at Massie, eying her distastefully. "Cam is getting fucked by everyone and everything because of _her_ and everyone just expects me to help her out when she doesn't even _want_ the help? I get that she got the short end of the stick, but there is nothing redeemable about her. And if there were, it wouldn't _fucking_ matter, would it, because she's his goddamn _goddaughter_ , and she's probably playing the same game as him, dealing the same cards as her cunt of a father. Who even knows! Maybe she's _lying_ about what happened to her—"

Derrick drags her along with him as he strides forward. It is only her quick thinking and quicker reflexes that she ducks out of the way before his fist makes direct contact with Josh's nose.

A sickening crack, and then it's broken.

Massie feels like something's broken in her, too.

"Must be nice," Josh snips, sparing Massie a glance, "to have manipulated someone so thoroughly he'll attack the people who care about him." The muscle in his jaw jumps. "You can have him. Have Todd, too, whatever, but you can't have me, and you _can't have Cam_."

"I'll break your jaw, too," Derrick threatens.

But Josh has decided to put all of his attention on Massie, acting as if Derrick isn't even there. "He went back into that snake pit for _you_ , Massie," Josh tells her. "He's doing damage control for _you_. He's never done that for me. He's never… I've always… I'm in love with him," he croaks, blood coating his mouth red. "I'm not—I'm not going to lose any more of him because of you. Get your shit together. Look past yourself and figure out what's really important here." He flicks his gaze to Derrick, who is still staring intently at him. "I'll see you on the train."

He's gone, not bothering to look back, and Massie watches him go, arms wrapped around her middle.

 _I'm in love with him. I'm not going to lose any more of him because of you._

Doesn't that sound familiar?

She sniffles, and she's not sure when she even started crying. She just knows that she is, and every part of her hurts, but nothing compares to the way her heart feels, all splintered and bruised. The pieces fall into her stomach, cutting her up inside.

 _I'm in love with him_.

She's in love with someone, too.

Massie feels him approach before she sees him, like her body and her mind and what's left of her heart are so keenly attuned to him. Always aware that he exists. Always aware of _him_ , regardless of her state of mind. She's spent months disliking him greatly, and then the time before that loving him—he's always been there. Hopefully he will always be there, even though she doesn't want what he wants.

Her blood sings when he touches her, fingers tentative on her shoulders. Her body reaches out for him, but she doesn't move, content to curl in her misery, in her self-pity, in her confusion.

"Is it so wrong?" she asks quietly, unnerved by the way he's staring at her. "To be selfish? Is that wrong of me?"

"Josh is a grade A asshole," Derrick informs her like she doesn't already know. "Ignore him."

She looks past him, towards the station. Trains wait there, lights on, for their occupants, and somewhere in there is Josh, upset with her very existence, and somewhere else a train waits for her, and for Cam, and for her father.

"But he's your friend," she finally says, remembering the way he said he cared about Derrick. "And he loves Cam. But I love Cam, too, and he… he _can't_ —it's personal for him, too, if he's doing this because he loves Cam. He's as selfish as I am, if selfish is what I am, and I am fine with that. Do you want to know why?" She's rambling now, but she can't stop, words spilling out of her mouth like vomit. "Everyone rebels for personal reasons; no one does it for the greater good. No one just wakes up one day and says _hey! I care about the suffering of everyone else, and definitely not my own, or that of the people I love, but complete strangers, and I want to save them_! No, no one says that, no one is _like_ that—"

"Hey, hey, hey," Derrick murmurs, pressing a featherlight kiss to her forehead. "Ignore him, okay? He's just—he's tired. It's been a long couple of months for us all."

Massie grabs at his elbows. "I don't want to be part of the rebellion," she tells him honestly, feeling sick with every word. "I don't. Maybe it is stupid of me, and maybe he's right, maybe I'm not worth it, but I really believe if I do what they ask of me, they'll give me something. I have to believe it. If I don't… if I don't…"

If she doesn't, what is there left to believe in?

"Don't you ever say that," Derrick says. "Don't you… you're worth it. You've been worth it since the day I met you."

He is so earnest, so _open_ , that she finds herself searching his face for answers to questions she hasn't even allowed herself to consider. Questions she doesn't want to consider, not really. She finds everything in the cleft of his chin, in the slope of his jaw, in the furrow of his brow.

"You," she breathes.

If she doesn't believe in that, she believes in him.

"What?" he asks, peering into her eyes in a way that makes her itchy.

"I'm sorry," she says, and then swallows. "If you want someone who wants the same things as you, I can't be that person."

"Weren't you listening?" he asks. "You're the only person I want. You'll always be the only person I'll _ever_ want. I'd love you if you were all those things Josh said you were. I'd love you if you were the poorest person in the country." He smiles, just a twist of the lips. She can't tell if it looks sad or not, but it tugs at her heartstrings anyway, wherever those are. "You don't have to be part of the rebellion. No one was asking that of you."

"Angela was," Massie says. "She wanted me to… to…"

"And she heard an earful from me for even suggesting it," Derrick promises her. "You will _never_ have to play crazy, not for Angela, not for the Capitol, not for me."

"It's not playing if it's what I am," Massie mutters, "and I don't want to be defined by one thing. I don't want to exploit myself when it's convenient."

Derrick shakes his head. "You are not," he argues. "You're not crazy. Not even a little bit."

She wants to say something that matters, something about how his support of her, even after everything she's tried to do to him tonight, means a lot to her. Or something about how she thinks, despite the Capitol's brainwashing of her, she's always loved him, she just wasn't strong enough to hold on to it. She wants to thank him for his letters, especially, because those saved her life, but all she says…

All she says is, "I should go."

He frowns, eyes roaming over her face, quick, quick, quick, and clamors to grab her hands. She pulls them just out of reach, and she doesn't know why, because she wants him to hold them. He ignores her, takes them anyway, and links their fingers. She wonders if he feels the tremors there. She does. They don't even feel like her own right now. They feel like someone else's.

"Do you want company until one of them gets here?" he asks.

 _Yes_ , she thinks.

 _I don't want you to go at all_ , she thinks.

 _Stay with me forever_ , she thinks.

But she merely answers, "No," and shakes herself from him.

She doesn't look at him as she turns away. She climbs the steps to the tracks, as calmly and slowly as she can, and makes a beeline to the first train, _her_ train. The doors there are open and inviting, waiting for her to cross the threshold, but she doesn't get a chance to.

Derrick's hand wraps around her wrist, stopping her before she can get onboard, before she can _hide_ , and he twirls her around. She gasps, flush against his chest again, and blinks up, heart beginning to race, race, _race_ at the look on his face. At the… at the heat of the hunger she finds there, written in the brown of his eyes and the flare of his nostrils.

"Why do you say no," he begins to ask, voice low and husky and stoking the fire that builds within in her with every passing second she meets that heavy stare of his, "when you really mean to say yes?"

Massie bites down on her lower lip, siphoning through all the words she knows, but finds herself so transfixed with the way Derrick is all but devouring her she cannot remember a single one. She has none—no witty response. Not even anything mean to say. She has nothing. _Nothing_.

Derrick feeds off this, and whatever she is giving off.

"I'm going to ask again and I want you to be honest," Derrick tells her, sparking with authority. He brings himself closer, if that's even possible, dropping his head so their noses brush. She shudders. "Do you want company?"

At the word _company_ , she imagines hot mouths and slow kisses, soft sounds and tangled limbs.

Derrick must read her mind, or it's written all over her face, for his eyes darken as he waits. His breath stutters, hitches, practically _stops_ when she takes her hands and slips them under his sweater.

She drags her nails up the warm skin of his chest, feels his heart as it pounds against his ribcage. She keeps pushing, keeps touching, keeps feeling, committing this body to memory, until she's coaxed him out of his turtleneck. It drops to the ground, leaving him half-naked before her, and she winds her arms around his neck, tugging him close, close, close, _close_.

Still, he waits for her answer, even though it is so blindingly obvious. His thumbs tease at her hipbones, applying pressure against the fabric there, and Massie says, she says, she says—

Massie says, "Yes."

It is one syllable, but that one syllable is enough to spur on what she can only describe as the thing that brings her back to life. He ducks his head to kiss her, hands sliding up the length of her body to dig into her hair, pulling her face up to meet his in a way that is easily accessible to him.

This is nothing like the other kisses they shared, today and any other time; it makes her forget literally _everything_ that has ever happened to her. Every good thing, every bad thing—there is only him. Only Derrick, and his perfect lips, and his large hands, and the feel of him beneath her fingertips.

If someone wanted to ask her what her name was right now, she wouldn't be able to tell them. She doesn't know it. Can't think straight enough to figure it out. She only remembers it when it's breathed against her skin—like a prayer, like an answer, like he's found everything he's ever wanted, everything he's ever asked for, in the shape of her mouth.

 **…**

They find her bed.

She only knows it's hers because it still somehow smells like the lavender baths she'd taken too many of as they traveled the length of the upper districts.

They find her bed, and they do not leave it.

 **…**

He says, "I need you to say it," on three separate occasions.

It is always yes.

Yes, as he pulls her dress up the length of her body,

yes, as he marvels at the build of her, of the parts of her he hasn't been able to see until now,

 _yes_ , as she reaches shaking hands to undo his belt.

 **…**

When her "yes" is small and hardly a sound, she says, "Now you."

He blinks as if he's never considered this, and she parrots him, somehow knowing this means a lot to him, even if he is seemingly unaware of it. "I need you to say it. Yes or no?"

The smile he gives her is small. It is soft. It is just for her. She wants to paint it to the inside of her eyelids, on the off chance she forgets everything that's happened—but she won't, that's not possible, not anymore—and wonders about him.

"Yes," he answers.

"Yes," she returns, a fourth time.

 **…**

He does not ask again.

 **…**

"I'm sorry for slapping you," Massie murmurs, brushing her thumb against his cheekbone, where she is certain she can still see the ghost of her handprint. It does not help that his skin is flushed.

Derrick's eyes consume her. "I'm sorry for taking you to the rebellion meeting."

"It's okay," she says.

"You slapped me because of it," he replies softly, teasingly, though the joke of it all falls flat. "It's not." He twists amongst her sheets, burying his face in the sweat-soaked skin of her neck. "You haven't been honest with me."q

"I haven't had any contact with you since that last day in the arena," she retorts.

He presses a kiss to her throat and lifts his head, looking up at her from beneath his lashes. "Tell me what happened. Tell me it all."

Massie wonders when she'll ever get over how pretty he is, even as he hovers over her, pink-cheeked and mussed— _especially_ as he hovers over her, pink-cheeked and mussed. She reaches a hand out again to trace the sharp, strong lines of his face, and cannot fathom how she'd ever been weak enough to forget him like this.

Like this: soft, doting, selfless, considerate.

How had she let them turn him into something else? Something that is not wholly _hers_?

Easy. They took away her control. She needs to remember that. She didn't do this to herself. _They_ did. The Capitol did. She's had the answers in front of her this whole time, but refused to see them because she was too stubborn, too prideful. The Capitol—no, stop lumping them all together. _The president_ —it was the _president_ —he counted on that fault of hers. He knew she would never allow herself a moment of self-doubt, knew exactly what to do and how to egg her on. Knew exactly how to control not only herself, but her whole family.

And she just let it happen. They all just let it happen.

Why doesn't she want to be part of the rebellion again?

Oh, that's right. She's scared, and her fear does not spur her into _that_ fight, but keeps her right where she is.

"Tell me what happened to you," she requests.

"There is not much to tell," Derrick answers, and that is a lie. "I said the wrong things and angered the wrong people and now I am left with a father who hates me."

Massie forces herself to ask, "But _why_?"

He snakes an arm around her waist, fingers drifting across her naked hipbone. She hums in contentment, the motion nice, and waits. Waits for him to say, "I thought I was better than them. I found out I was wrong too late."

She blinks, expecting more.

He adds, "They only teach you how to play one game. They never tell you there are others and you do not get to choose your own pieces."

"Derrick," she presses, "I need you to tell me _why_."

"I already did," he replies, voice barely a breath. "In the letters. Or did you not read them?"

"Of course I read them," Massie shoots back, startled he'd even ask such a question. "I read them so many times I could _recite_ them." She feels the heat creep up her neck and to her cheeks, and regrets her haircut once more when she cannot hide her reddening skin with the shake of her head. "Those letters saved my life." For once she is not being overdramatic.

Derrick shifts closer, looking like he wants to kiss her again—and she wants him to, wants him to do _more_ than kiss her—but then he thinks otherwise, pulling away. He tries to untangle himself from her, movements insistent and choppy, like he's just remembered where he is and what he's doing. Massie doesn't let him, even as he rasps, "Then you know."

Even as he pleads, "Don't make me say it."

"Whatever it is," she tells him, craning her neck to brush her mouth against his jawline, "it does not matter. It does not define you."

Just as her emotional instability does not define her.

Just as her "crazy" does not define her.

Just as her brainwashing does not define her.

He cringes at her touch, though his hand travels the length of her spine to bury itself in her hair. "I can't believe I even touched you," he murmurs.

"I wish you would keep touching me," Massie returns, rough and full of longing, committing the dips and grooves of his body to memory with the pads of her fingertips.

Derrick swallows, knee nudging against her and spasming. "You can't possibly want me, knowing what I've done."

"Not what you've done," she argues, convincing him to feel just how much she _does_ want him. "What they've made you do."

His hand between her thighs stills there. Prods. Then builds a tantalizing rhythm that forces Massie's hips into motion. She clamps down on a sigh, watching his face, and eases her legs wider.

What defines her is him, as she is what defines him.

"You are mine," she tells him, sees how the possession brings out those male, animalistic qualities in him. "Nothing they can do to you can ever change that. I wanted you first."

"I said your name once," he admits. "I used to spend a lot of time imagining it was you, and it—it just slipped."

"How many?" she asks.

"One a day, at the least," he mumbles. "Since my mother's death."

Massie tries to calculate that in her mind, but the number, as it steadily rises, only upsets her, even as a welcome, excited heat rises within her.

Her voice is a gasp. "Do you want to—again?"

"I want to forget every other time it wasn't you," he answers honestly.

She peers at him, wills herself to calm, and reaches a finger to draw down the side of his face. She thumbs at his lower lip, feels the moisture there, from where his tongue swiped earlier. "Were you the one who was always in control?"

Derrick bites down on that finger of hers, just a soft close of the teeth, and nods.

She bats his hand away from her, instantly missing his slow ministrations, and throws a leg over him so she can easily straddle him. "Then let me," she murmurs, "let me give you something to remember when it is not me."

"There will never be another time when it is not you." He chokes on the words as she grabs his wrists and squeezes, forcing them up and over his head. "I don't think I could bear it, now that I know—"

"No," she tuts, as he tries to mouth at her exposed skin, the parts of her closest to his face. "You do not touch me until I say so. You are not in control right now, Derrick. I am."

He groans, hips rolling, and Massie follows the movement, watches the dominance wash from his cheeks, lids heavy and jaw losing tension, before sitting up and slowly, _so_ slowly, picking at each and every one of his threads until he comes undone beneath her.

He does not realize until much, much later that she effectively distracted him from questioning her further.

Does not realize that there was a moment there, in the feel of his lips, hot and heavy against hers, that she'd changed her mind.

 **…**

She does not realize this either, but it comes to her slowly.

 **…**

When Cam finally strides in, he doesn't even knock as he barges into Massie's room. She rouses from sleep, her body curled small and tight against Derrick's side, only when his cold turtleneck is thrown at the two of them.

"Left something outside," he snaps. "Don't be so stupid next time and clean up after yourselves." A pause. "We'll drop you in Four on the way to Twelve."

Massie thinks she catches a soft smile playing on his mouth but he is gone as quickly as sleep finds her again that she is unsure.

 **…**

At the speed the train is going, Massie and Derrick only have about five days together until they hit District Four. They do not spend it wondering how their esteemed president—and her beloved godfather, a thing they have not discussed, not even breached, either—will punish them for it, but, rather, they spend it isolated, not even coming out for food.

It always seems to find them, though, the food. Like Cam, or the servants—more likely the servants—are making sure plates are left outside the door of her room or on the nightstands by the bed.

No one tries to take this away from them.

She can feel it in the air, the way it is fleeting. Their company. Their companionship. Time. _Time_ is fleeting. Massie never felt that way before.

It stresses her out. Makes her uncomfortable. She wants to take the clock and break it, freezing time and allowing him to stay with her forever and ever.

But that is not how it works. Even if she destroyed all the clocks on this train, the seconds would still pass, and the minute hand would still turn, and the hours would still start to add up.

On what she thinks is day three, between what has to be noon and two, Massie whispers, "They tried to take you away from me. That's what happened to me. They tried to take you away from me."

She remembers a lot more now than she used to, and only lets herself worry for a moment that she will lose it all once Derrick is gone. He is the anchor she's been searching for, the anchor she's had since every piece of her started to evaporate in that arena. Maybe even before then, before she knew who he was—maybe she was always searching for him. Maybe she'd been trying to find him in a different boy. Maybe she'd only truly opened herself to finding him when she killed the person in her way.

Massie grabs his hand and links their fingers, holding on to what remains. Of him. Of her.

"They did that to me, too," Derrick replies, voice just above a whisper, mouth hovering somewhere over her ear.

"But it didn't work for you," she replies, even though he's never once told her so. She just knows. Knows that he's stronger than her. That he can face the obstacles being thrown their way. That she can't. "It worked for me."

Massie gnaws on her lower lip, fighting to hold his gaze as every nerve in her body screams for her to _look away_ , and adds, "They made me forget you."

Derrick shakes his head slowly. "But you're right here," he denies, "with me. We've literally—for the past—we've been _naked_ this whole time, Massie, you can't have forgotten me."

"Those letters saved my life," she reminds him, and then, even though her heart is racing and her voice is breaking, she tells a story.

A story of how a girl loved a boy, and that love was perceived as a threat to everyone else, so they tried to lock the girl up. Tried to make her the perfect weapon.

She tells a story of how that girl was not so wholly convinced. How certain things reminded her. Certain words. How she is not so sure all of that is good for them, how she thinks this might be what they want.

She tells a story of how this girl loves this boy, and she always will, with all her heart, even if there are other, more superficial feelings at play. She thinks the girl will always love the boy. Thinks she was born to love him. That she was made for this purpose and this purpose alone.

Massie tells Derrick that even in a room full of people, even if she were blindfolded, even if she lost all sense of smell, even if she touched everyone in the world and they all felt like him—she would find him. She would find him over and over and over again.

She tells him that her biggest weakness is him.

Her biggest weakness is him and it is not a secret. The whole world saw it.

"And you are mine," he whispers back, the first words he's said since she started speaking what feels like hours ago.

"Even when I am dead," she says, like she is dying tomorrow, or in a week, or in a month, "I will find you. In whatever afterlife awaits us, I will find you."

"You don't need to go looking for me," he breathes, grabbing her hands. Pulling her close, close, _close_. Close enough that their bodies are tangled and they are one. "I'm right here."

Massie nods, even though she knows he won't be, even though she knows that he doesn't mean physically, but rather nestled in her heart, always within reach.

 **…**

When the train slows to a stop in District Four, Massie finds it hard to let go of Derrick's hand. They'd practiced this, after she told him everything, to see what would happen once they were apart.

An hour without him, she was fine.

Two—also fine.

Three—pretty much the same.

She couldn't bear four, so she didn't bother, seeking him out after she showered. She found him in the dining car, sharing a large plate of breads and cheeses with Cam. She'd perched on his lap, listening to them talk, and didn't bother wondering why they did not stop when she entered the room; they were talking about Angela's plans, about the rebellion, and Massie was still steadfastly _not_ a part of it.

Now she faces her biggest test, and her mind reels through endless possibilities of what will happen to her. She is convinced this was all part of Myner's plan, that's why he didn't bother trying to stop this train, and squints into the bright sunlight of Four.

It's everything she imagined it would be.

Everything she can't have.

She can hear the waves, smell the sea. The laughter of children twists around her. The heat of the district consumes her, caresses her.

Derrick's entire being lights up, thrilled to be back, and Massie swallows, planting her feet. She wants to go with him, wants to be _here_ , but she can't. The steady presence of Cam at her side reminds her that he feels the same. Somewhere in there is Josh, and he can't be with him either.

 _Not yet_ , her mind whispers. _Not with Myner in power._

There is a tug on her hand, pulling her away and out of her thoughts, and she looks up into Derrick's sparkling eyes. The green ringed around them, thankfully, has begun to fade.

"Come on," he says.

Massie glances at Cam. He juts his chin ever so slightly.

"It's the least you can do," Derrick continues loftily. "I need an escort to make sure I get to Sage in one piece."

"Sage is here?" she asks.

Derrick nods excitedly, like he's about to see his sister, or someone else Massie accidentally got killed, again after a long, long time. "She wants to meet you," he tells her. "Officially."

Cam says, "I think I can distract the driver long enough to give you twenty minutes," and he's gone, scurrying between cars to reach the head of the train.

Massie frowns, watching him, but does not get a chance to worry about what he means by _distract_. Even though she's done nothing but ignore him for the past week, he's still doing all he can to give her what she wants.

Perhaps she's being a bit too cold.

But, again, that is not something she gets to worry about.

Derrick leads the way onto the platform, and Massie, not used to the brightness of the _real_ sun, shields her eyes with her free hand.

It's hot, so hot, actually, that Derrick unbuttons the flannel he'd stolen from Cam's dresser, revealing the smooth, muscled stomach beneath. Massie stares, then looks away, and pretends he doesn't huff a laugh at her blatant ogling.

"Not even here for five minutes and you're already trying to take off your clothes," a distinctly feminine, sort of husky voice teases.

Massie has very little to feel self-conscious about, but she feels herself stiffen when Derrick speeds up, eager to greet the owner of this sexy drawl. She is suddenly empty when he lets go of her hand to throw his arms around Sage Redwood, engulfing her tiny form in his large one.

So empty, she feels, that she wraps up in herself, digging her nails into her elbows. This is what it will be like, when she has to turn around and leave him behind.

"I don't remember it being as warm when I left," Derrick finally quips in reply. "Forgive me."

Sage slaps his abdomen. "Move," she orders. "I want to see your pretty little lady."

"But I miiiiissed you," he whines, keeping his chin on the top of her head. "Let me love you."

"Uck," Sage retorts. "No, thank you. _Move_."

He doesn't.

She pinches his side.

He yelps and shifts, frowning at her as she takes in Massie, who greets weakly, "I never got a chance to thank you for the cake."

Sage bats a hand. "Compliments of a swanky bakery in the Capitol that now has some sort of pastry named after you," she replies. "S'nothing. Glad you didn't throw it up, honestly. It was a poorly planned gift."

"From what I remember, it tasted good," Massie says. "Really all that matters."

The woman stands before her now, and she's even prettier than Massie could have imagined up close. Tanned, like Derrick, with hair that reminds her of the outdoors, seamlessly transitioning between colors as the light hits it, like a tree in the fall. She smiles wide, taking in all of Massie, from her head to her toes, and pulls her into a hug.

Well. She's more of a hugger than a handshaker, she guesses.

"It's so great to finally meet you!" Sage exclaims, squeezing tighter. Massie pats her back. "Derrick talks about you so much I felt like I already knew you, but he certainly lacks the vocabulary your beauty demands."

"Oh my god." Derrick groans.

Massie smirks, meeting his gaze over Sage's shoulder. "Is that so?"

It is with immense pleasure that she sees pink burst in his cheeks. He looks away, towards the horizon, and busies himself with the shedding of the flannel entirely. He ties it around his waist, runs a hand through his hair.

Delighted, Massie whispers loudly, "You've made him so uncomfortable he's decided to take the entire shirt off."

Sage howls, spinning around. "Not so suave now," she shoots at him. "I should've used her against you more often." To Massie, she adds, "Did he tell you about how he refused to help me with dinner once because he quote, unquote _hates fish_?"

"I do hate fish!"

"That's not very nice, Derrick," Massie tells him. "She made sure you got out of that arena alive, it's the _least_ —"

"I believe it was _you_ that got me out of that arena alive," Derrick interrupts. "No offense, Red."

"None taken." Sage smiles again, a huge grin that's, quite frankly, a bit disarming. "That was quite the stunt you pulled. Did you know it was going to work out like that?"

Flashes of that wood, of the bodies of lion mutts around them, of the sheer terror and desperation that punched her in the gut—it fills her brain now, fills her _body_ now, and she remembers just how hopeless she felt. She can see it all, the way Derrick's blood flows down his leg like a rushing river, the way everything seemed out of focus but so very, very clear as she made her decision.

She hears Derrick hiss something at Sage in real time, probably a reprimand, but it's fine, it is, she doesn't know like he knows what happened to her. And she needs to embrace it all anyway, doesn't she? Needs to find a balance between casual remembrance and overall takeover.

She blinks and then answers, "No. I had no idea what would happen." The arena vanishes from her mind's eye, replaces itself with the district surrounding her. The only constant is Derrick, who bites at his lower lip, watching her intently. "I just knew I didn't want to live without him. Everything else was secondary."

He smiles, lip still caught in his teeth, and Sage coos, looking between the two of them.

It is suddenly like Derrick is the only person at the station, the only person in the _world_ , and she can tell by the way he replaces his teeth with his tongue, his eyes narrowing in on her, that he's got a similar feeling.

"I love you, too, you doof," he says.

Massie memorizes this, the same way she's memorized every other interaction she and Derrick had over the past five days. She tucks it away to be pulled out later, like all the others. This one, though, is different. It seems like… like a promise of something. Of something she doesn't want to admit she's started holding onto in her heart. Of something she's wanted with each morning she's woken to him beside her.

( _Future_.

The sun browning his shoulders, setting his hair ablaze, shining all it touches. The ocean surrounding them, the sound of waves crashing and seagulls cawing. The unbelievable feeling of _home_ that transcends even what she feels for One… even Sage, who she has just met, silent and observant between them, content to bask in the feelings Derrick and Massie have for each other… it is a promise of a future.

And a future is a terrible thing to hope for, if you are Massie.)

"What are your plans after the Victory Tour?" asks Sage. The question tears apart the dreams Massie hates herself for having; a thankful distraction, for she was starting to imagine children, a perfect, beautiful mix of the two of them, all with Derrick's smile. _Yikes._

"Sage—"

But Massie admits to her the one thing she has not allowed herself to fully embrace, despite the attempt she made to Derrick on day three, between noon and two.

"I imagine I will have no need for plans once the Tour is over." And the way she says it, it does not sound like she's hinting at anything, like some people do when they are keeping a secret that is not really a secret at all.

It sounds like acceptance. Like resignation. Like seeing something and knowing very well that what you're seeing is real and you never had a chance in hell to get what you wanted. Like she is walking onto a battlefield with no intention of coming off it.

She will need no plans because dead girls don't need plans. They only need graves.

Cam calls for her.

Massie turns and walks away, refusing to say goodbye. She hears Derrick start, but he does not follow after her, as if he knows this, too.

She will ensure she makes it to Four again, even if all the districts in between make her want to die. She will come back, and she will experience all she wants and is denied, and then—only then—will she say it.

She only hopes her president does not have any schemes up his sleeves.

 **…**

Having grown accustomed to Derrick's untidy handwriting, Massie knows without a second thought that the letter on her bed is from him. She notes the way he curls his _G_ s and crosses his _T_ s, the familiarity in which he pens her name, making it all the more precious and beautiful than it is.

 _Massie_ , it reads.

 _Knowing you, you probably feel stupid for admitting that I am your weakness, probably hate that this is something that you cannot keep to yourself, since you discovered it in front of everyone else. But I want you to know there is nothing wrong with loving someone to this end. There is no weakness in it. There is only strength in finding someone you care for as much as you do yourself. Very rarely do we have the opportunity to do so. I also know you do not believe me, when I say you are my weakness too, and that they tried to take you away from me. What they saw this year in you, they also saw in me, and where they wanted me to see weakness in loving you, I only saw strength, because it was only thoughts of you that helped me through. So yes, you are my weakness, but you are also my strength, and I will burn this world to the ground if they try to take you away from me again._

There is more, a whole page worth of more, but she stops there, something in her heart stitching itself back together.

Strength.

Is that what this is?

 **…**

But if it is, if this _is_ strength, why does she feel so broken? Why does she find herself unable to look at the other side of her bed? Why does she burrow herself in the sheets that smell like him, that still feel warm from his body? Why does she have to coach herself to keep the tears at bay? Why does every breath _hurt_?

This cannot be strength.

Strength cannot feel like weakness.

Strength is not laying in her bed and crying like some lovesick loser because her—her _what_?—her boyfriend? that's not what he is—because… because she's alone now.

Strength is doing what she has to do, what is expected of her. Strength is pushing forward and ignoring all of that because she is _better_ than it. _Above_ it.

Strength is not hugging a pillow to her chest and hiding for the majority of the day.

Derrick is wrong. Loving him is a weakness. She'd never felt like this before him.

Weak. She is weak now, and because of that, she is easy to prey on.

 **…**

She can change that.

She can make it hard to knock her down.

 **…**

She _will_ make it hard to knock her down, if only to get her back to Four in one piece.

Because she can admit she is weak, even if he wants to say she is the opposite. A part of her is ashamed, yes, that she's turned into this, but another has accepted it. She is okay with being weak, but only if she is weak for him.

She will be weak for nothing and no one else.

 **…**

District Five forks into Ten and Two, mountains to the left and open fields to the right, when Massie decides to talk to Cam. It is a simple question, one she asks as she gazes out the window, the sun beginning its slow decline.

"Which will we cut through?"

He jerks his head, looking up from the utterly boring book he's attempting to read. Massie knows it sucks only because she tried to read it the last time they were on this train, when she was ignoring letters.

"What?" he asks.

She points. "We have to get to the other side of the country. Will we go through Two or Ten?"

Cam blinks, at a loss for words, and then answers, "I think we'll make a beeline for Eleven, cut through Eight, and then arrive in Twelve through the south rather than the west."

"Oh," says Massie. "So we're sticking with the coast, then. Good. I hate Two."

He, her brother, snorts. "You hate anything that isn't One."

"That," Massie murmurs, eyes still trained on the window, taking in all the places and sights she's never seen before, "doesn't seem to be the case anymore."

She feels him stare at her, gaze hot against the side of her face, but doesn't move an inch. "I saw," he comments lightly, vaguely. "I understand."

"I know," she replies.

 _I'm in love with him_ , Josh Hotz had said.

"Do you," she starts. "Are you two—?"

"I've never," Cam answers, because he can follow her train of thought. Maybe that's a Block family trait, having the same minds… you know, when they aren't tampered with. "Not with him. I want to, but I can't—I… not when I have so much filth on my hands."

She swallows and it hurts. "You and Derrick, then, are—you're the same?"

"He told you," Cam observes.

"He's been telling me for months, in his own way," Massie murmurs. "I just chose to ignore it. Reading between the lines is not as fun as one would have thought."

"I know you are mad at me, but that night in the Capitol, it was not because we wanted it. Wanted each other." Cam's voice is sad. "It's what Jamie Marvil paid for."

Massie grits her teeth, hates the way she tortures herself with the image of Derrick and Cam stumbling out of a room so conveniently placed behind Cole Myner. "I am not mad at you."

" _Massie_."

"I am mad," she clarifies, "at everything. I am mad in general. I am _mad_." She sniffs, turning her head to meet his gaze head-on. "I am not mad at you. I could never be mad at my best friend."

His face softens, eyes shimmering, glassy, as the words crash over him. She makes herself look into the blue there, even though it still unnerves her. She is lucky she does not hallucinate the other tributes as much anymore or she might have been unable to look at him ever.

The silence that greets her makes her uncomfortable despite knowing that her announcement has a profound impact on him. Massie breathes sharply, refrains from playing with her fingers, and adds, "I thought it was Kemp, but the length of time you know someone has nothing to do with it. It's you."

"Are you sure," he croaks, the voice of a man who has never had the opportunity to have friends, _real_ friends, since he won the Hunger Games at fourteen. He's never let anyone close enough. No one… no one but her, on a mid-summer's night, hours after the two tributes from One died in the Seventy-Third Annual Hunger Games.

He'd picked her then, long before they'd found out they were related.

She picked him now, just a bit slower on the uptake.

"I am sure," Massie replies. "No one else has ever taken care of me the way you do. I can't do much, but I'd like to help you, too, if you'd let me."

Cam closes the book with an unnecessary thud; he is up in a second, crossing the room on long-legged strides. Massie is wrapped in him, all but crushed against his chest, where she can hear the erratic beating of his heart, like he was terrified she'd say no. She lays her head there, closes her eyes, wills the fear to leave his body. There is no need for him to be nervous about anything concerning her.

Well—concerning her about _this_.

"I'm sorry if I've caused a rift between you and… between you two," she whispers. "I don't think he likes me much."

"He likes you just fine," Cam replies. "He's just on edge. We all are. No one was… we thought we'd have…" He pauses, deliberating his next move. "We didn't think the rebellion would revolve around you."

There it is again: _rebellion_. Hanging over her like a terrible raincloud, waiting to open up and pour down on her.

Ignoring the way her body reacts to it, to just the word, Massie asks, "It was supposed to be Twelve, wasn't it? Not both of them, but the girl. Todd's sister." Claire.

"It would be easier to rally around a Victor from an outlier district," Cam admits, "and a poor one, at that, but whatever you did, it worked just fine."

Massie remembers what they've all told her—Myner, Angela, Cam, even Derrick. They've all told her that despite not being the ideal candidate to spur on a rebellion, she's the next best thing. She may not know of suffering, not of the kind most of these people do, not of starvation, and living in dirt, and giving everything to a ruler they do not believe in, but she knows of something else. She's shown them that even the districts that dote and are doted on by the Capitol can question a government that is already in their favor. Just a small act of defiance, no matter how selfish, can change the world.

And change the world she did.

Everyone from the Capitol, from the twelve districts—everyone watched her, the perfect District One tribute, pretty and snarky and self-obsessed and itching for a fight, transform right before their eyes. Before this, tributes were one-dimensional, exactly as they were perceived by the Capitol, personalities and bodies based merely on what their district could provide.

Massie went in ruthless and pompous and superior.

She came out the complete opposite. She came out with someone else, someone she'd rather die with than lose, someone she'd spent half her time in the arena either protecting or searching for.

They watched a conceited girl from One who was no doubt going to get murdered by her district partner or that crazy blonde from Two fall in love. They watched her mourn a twelve year old who should have never been there in the first place. They watched her fight for herself when the stacks were piled high against her.

And somewhere along the line, somewhere between her merciless killing and her overwhelming discovery of feelings, they started rooting for her. For Derrick. More than one sponsor, according to Cam, had wanted them to both come out together. Half the Capitol, according to her father, rioted outside both the presidential mansion and the Gamemaking Centre, demanding a change in the rules.

Last week, Angela informed her just what her actions did to the country. To the rebellion. She turned a number of important people in the Capitol. She strengthened District Four. She turned Victors in One who didn't want to go against William Block, whose allegiances were hard to read. Much of the sponsorship money went to her that year, and it was not because she was pretty.

It was because of her tears over Ripple.

It was because of her small, embarrassing admittance of not wanting Derrick to die in a game where his death would be celebrated.

It was because of her choice to defend herself against Kemp even after he ripped her apart, squeezing the life out of her.

It was because of her refusal to leave Derrick to fight the mutts.

It was because of her plan to eat poisonous berries to avoid a future she wanted no part in.

It was because of every selfish decision she'd ever made that the rebellion still lived.

A rebellion she wants no part of.

It's easy for her to say she doesn't want a place there, at their table, where they plan and plot and scheme. She hadn't had to think about it. Thank you, but no.

That was a big point for Josh, too. Something else to add to the list of things he hates about her. But she's not a terrible person, no matter what anyone else says. She just doesn't… she can't. Not when there's a _chance_ …

Maybe she's stupid for holding on to the possibility of that chance. Maybe she really has been brainwashed by the Capitol if she's willing to hold off on something that's for the greater good. That's, more importantly, good for _her_. The very people she is unconsciously defending by siding with no one… they're the ones that did this to her. Shouldn't that be enough for her?

They took her memories and altered them. They may have tainted Derrick for her forever. They killed her mother, who'd been nothing but beloved by them. They killed Derrick's entire family, save his father, because he played the same game as Massie, because he said no one too many times, because he made a few mistakes.

And yet… yet… she still says no.

"Hey," Cam says, and she is pulled out of her mind so quickly and so harshly it makes her head spin, "don't worry about it, okay? There was truly no guaranteeing a non-Career would win. It's not like it's your fault. And there's nothing for you to even be at fault for. There's still… it's still there."

"What would you all have done if it hadn't worked?" she asks, thinking hard. "What if I hadn't done anything? What if Kemp and I made it to the end like we were supposed to and he killed me and he won? What would happen then?"

Cam slumps against her, hands sliding a bit farther down her back as if some sort of weight is settling on his shoulders. "Continue on, I guess," is his answer. "Do what we've been doing. What we've always done."

Massie imagines a world in which that is the case, where no one of note wins the Games, where no one ever steps up to be someone the people can rally behind. She thinks about Cam, stuck loving Josh from a distance because he's too afraid to really be with him. She thinks about Todd, helping the people who ruined his life ruin others' with tricks and simulations. She thinks about Josh, who must not be subtle in his affection towards Cam, tortured and miserable with the knowledge that his love is loving other people, always there as it happens. She thinks about Derrick, who has lost everything because she loved him, repaying the Capitol for their generous and expensive gifts—both to him, and to her, because he will not let anything else happen to her.

She imagines this world and it is so ugly and mean that it makes her sick, her stomach rolling.

But she still needs to know one last thing.

"Do you know what they did to my father?"

Cam is silent, deliberately so.

This is important to her, knowing what horrors her dad faced. There is no way he is the way he is because he actually is remarkably good friends with Cole Myner. A man does not walk the line for no reason.

"Cam, please," she begs. "I need to know. I need—" _I need to know what to do._

"You're not going to like it," he tells her, soft and slow, "and I don't want to upset you, not when you've already been dealt a lot of hands that aren't in your favor."

"Nothing is ever in my favor," Massie retorts. "They just like to pretend that it is."

Her brother, her best friend, tightens his grip on her and says, "He made him start a family with a woman he couldn't stand. He Reaped me when they found out who my dad really was. He forced him to name you his goddaughter under the promise that you would never have to enter the Games, and then turned around and convinced you that they were the greatest thing to ever exist. He manipulated you into volunteering."

He takes a breath which is more like a shudder and adds something else, something that does not have to do with her father. "William told me something else, too, something about Kemp."

Massie feels her knees shake. "What?" she makes herself question.

"Are you sure you want—"

"Tell me."

"Kemp loved you," Cam says after a beat. "He loved you for two years, and probably would have fought the two of you being in the same Games had Myner not gotten into his head. He convinced him that his feelings for you would only weaken him in the arena. He gave birth to that desire of Kemp's to kill you. Made sure it consumed him. Made him go crazy with it." He grips Massie tighter, keeping her upright as her legs all but fail beneath her. "Your name was the only one in the bowl that day. Even if you had not volunteered, you would have made your way into the arena anyway. You were always meant to be there."

"Why?" she demands.

"Because," Cam starts slowly, "even though your dad hated your mom, he loved you, and Myner wanted to take that away from him. The one thing he loved."

Massie swallows down on her sob, catches it in her throat, and chokes on it. She presses her face into Cam's chest and mumbles, "What else?" Because there has to be something else. Cam would not remain so stiff if there weren't.

His hands rub circles into her back. They do not soothe her. "Myner sponsored Kemp," he says quickly, like he's ripping off a bandaid. "When you got those weapons when you were in the tree… Kemp got one, too."

"I remember," Massie replies. "I told him I wanted to be surprised by it when he murdered me. I never… I didn't get to see what it was because I killed him."

"Do you want to know what it was?"

No. "Yes."

Cam makes her look at him and says, "He sent him your father's axe."

 **…**

The arena is alive around her.

It is the worst mixture of hot and humid, clouds rolling above, signaling a storm of some sort. Given the company that occupies the Cornucopia, this is unnecessary. Whatever rain they are promising can be halted as Massie stares at Kemp, who has jumped from the massive golden horn.

"And," he says grandly, shit-eating grin splitting his face in two, "I got an even better weapon. A gift."

"Interesting," Massie replies, heart hammering in her chest.

"Do you want to see it?" he asks.

"No," she answers.

"But _baby_ ," he whines, lifting something from the ground, "I really think you do."

Massie scoffs, looking away, towards the two sides of the forest, where Derrick is somewhere, running to meet her here. She chews on the inside of her cheek, suddenly worried. Something is not right.

"I want to be surprised by it when you kill me," she returns easily, swallowing down that fear that grips her heart. She's not afraid, though. Not of him. So why is she like this?

"Alright." The smile in Kemp's voice can be heard loud and clear. "Easy enough."

"It won't be _easy_ ," she makes to retort, but freezes once she takes in the thing he's balancing in his hands. He holds it like it is something to be revered, something to cherish, and Massie's blood runs cold.

An axe.

More specifically, she notes with a squint, her _father's_ axe.

She'd recognize it anywhere, that axe that won the Fiftieth Annual Hunger Games.

Her gulp is audible, her steps staggering as she tries to fall back, away from him, away from _that_. Kemp stalks her like an animal, slamming her right against a forcefield that keeps her from fleeing back where she came from. She slams her shoulder against it, over and over, until she's certain she's bruised it and fumbles for the knife she's strapped to her belt. For the slingshot. For the boomerang. For _anything_.

She can't loosen the knots.

Kemp tuts. "Looks like it will be," he murmurs seductively, running the sharp end of the blade along the length of her neck. "I could, though, give you time to grab something to defend yourself with. It _is_ the final battle, after all."

Massie's hands stop. She cuts her palm with the knife-sword, but she barely feels the sting. "Final?" she echoes. "No. It's—there's still two more. I'm not the only—"

He uses his other hand to cup her face, callused fingers dipping into the blood dripping from the wound he's just inflicted on her. "You've been lost in your head, my love," he coos. "It's just the two of us now. I've waited for you to come back to me."

"No, it's not," she snaps weakly. "There's Andy, and there's Derrick, and there's me. And you. Four of us."

"There hasn't been four of us in days," Kemp tells her, sucking on his index finger. Her blood stains the skin there. "Do you not remember? I imagine not. After you killed Four, you kind of"—he whistles some sort of mocking tune—"lost it."

"I didn't," she breathes, peering into his dark, dark eyes. "I didn't kill him."

"You didn't?"

"No," she says, though she isn't sure. Doesn't remember.

Kemp laughs, loud and long and crazed. "Look behind me," he orders. "Look at your _hands_."

She does not.

She does not.

She does not.

This is _not real_.

Her eyes move on their own accord, though, trapped in this nightmare. Her tiny hands are torn open, slashes down the palms, bone jutting through cuts between the fingers. She doesn't feel the pain there, which is odd, but they ache, curling into themselves like she held something she's not accustomed to holding—

And then, presumably, hurt herself with it?

She doesn't know.

After careful consideration, Massie looks past Kemp.

Massie looks past Kemp, and her heart falls to her feet, where it shatters into a million, tiny pieces.

Derrick's body lays there, golden trident sticking out of his chest, right where she'd been, before Kemp forced her backwards.

"I didn't do that," she says.

"You did," Kemp replies gleefully. "I watched."

Massie shakes her head. "I didn't. I wouldn't." She had _plans_. For him. _With_ him. She'd made plans!

"You did," Kemp says again. "You would."

"If it's been days," she shoots back, breathing rapidly, unable to calm, "then why is the body still here? They take it away immediately. You're wrong. I didn't do it. I didn't."

Kemp shrugs. "They must want you incredibly unhinged," he offers, uncharacteristically wise. "For the drama. It's the last fight of them all and it's between us. They've been waiting for this."

"No," Massie says. "I didn't do it. This isn't real."

"Then what is?" he asks silkily. "Name something that is real."

She blurts, "I love him. He loves me. I went through _hell_ trying to get back to him. I will not fall victim to half-truths again."

"He loves you," Kemp repeats, a teasing lilt in his voice. "He loves you? Then tell me why he told me to kill you."

"Shut up!" Massie yells at him. "He didn't say that! I remember what he said, and it wasn't that, and it wasn't now."

Kemp watches her carefully, considering her. "Is that so?"

"Yes," she grits out, glaring at him. "Do you want to know how this plays out? You get so caught up in the _what if_ s and _what should be_ s that you let your guard down. You try to take me out _but I kill you_. I kill you, and later Derrick kills Andy, and then we take down a shitton of lions, and we _both_ come out of here alive." She takes a step forward when he falters. "You _die_ , Kemp. You die and _I_ live, so stop trying to trick me! There is nothing you can do about it."

"Oh, I don't think so," Kemp sing-songs. "I believe there is _a lot_ I can do about it."

He takes her father's axe and slashes, splitting her throat open. As she chokes on her own blood, unable to breathe, he lifts his arms again and _cuts_ , hacking away at her limbs until she is nothing but a torso, her legs, her arms, and her head separate from her body.

The last cannon sounds.

Kemp Hurley is the Victor of the Seventy-Four Annual Hunger Games.

 **…**

Massie wakes up screaming, clawing at her neck, kicking her legs, _shrieking_ like she's never shrieked before.

When Cam bursts in, hair mussed in the back and wielding the broken foot of a stool, she's gasping, sobbing, convulsing.

"Tell me he's not dead," she begs, digging her fingers so deep into Cam's skin she breaks it, causing red to stain under her nails. "Tell me he's not dead tell me he's not dead tell me he's not dead tell me tell me tell me tell me I didn't win this alone tell me please please please—"

He ignores the stinging of the wounds she inflicts on him, heaving her up and into his lap. "He's not dead," he answers, and he knows her dream was awful just by the tremors that take over her body.

Massie stares down at her hands, smooth and unmarred beneath the light of the stars from her window. "I don't want to kill him," she mumbles. "I don't want to be the reason he dies."

Cam runs hand through her hair, pulling it back into a tiny little ponytail. He doesn't say anything, knows that some nightmares are better off being sorted through alone, and tries to tuck her back into his chest.

She doesn't let him, looking up to meet his gaze with her own, eyes rimmed red, like she'd cried in her sleep. "I will do _anything_ ," she tells him, conviction ringing through the silence, "to make sure he doesn't die."

When he doesn't answer, she emphasizes again, grabbing his face, " _Anything_."

He blinks and says, "Okay."

He blinks and kisses her nose.

He blinks and says, "We'll start working on it tomorrow."

She nods, deflating against him, and asks, "Will you stay?"

Cam tugs on a fallen strand of hair, unable to stay in the pony he'd wrangled it into, and replies, "I never intended on leaving."

"Thank you," she whispers, and it is more than just appreciation for a friend keeping another company after a nightmare.


	12. Part Twelve: Tour

**_Sorry this took so long! I don't even know what happened to me these past few weeks. I just didn't feel like looking at a computer screen, and for good reason- this chapter is 48 pages long on Google docs. I hope that makes up for my absence, and I'm sorry for all the bad things I have happen to our boy in this one._**

 ** _Also made a stylistic choice that people in Four used to speak Spanish._**

 ** _4/10 update: Tour visits have been switched, thanks to a reviewer! Goes to show how much I know my own story ;)_**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Twelve_

* * *

 **tour |** **to͝or**  
noun  
 _a journey for pleasure in which several different places are visited_  
synonyms: circuit, round, course, excursion, jaunt, trek, voyage

* * *

Cam all but moves into Massie's train car. He leaves his pajamas there, tossed haphazardly over the end of the bed, and adds the blue-black blanket from his own room to the cacophony of purples that create Massie's.

There is nothing sexual about it. Not that it could be, since they're related and both uncomfortably aware of it. In fact, it is the most uncomfortable thing the two of them have done together. Massie is plagued with nightmares—violent, violent nightmares that leave Cam bruising—and she cannot find the comfort in his arms that she would if someone else were there with her. She tries, though. It's important to note that she _tries_.

The fourth night she wakes, sweating and shaking and demanding to know if Derrick is alive, if she's killed him, Cam finally breaks William's number one rule.

He lets her use the phone.

He lets her use the phone _to call Derrick._

"You don't have long until they figure out what you're doing and who you're calling," he tells her, scanning the room for bugs. They're in every corner. "But you'll have enough time for something, at least."

Massie squints at a fly, unsure if it's really an insect or if it contains a camera meant to spy on her. She swats at it in irritation, twists the cord of the phone around her finger, and presses shaky fingers into the numbers Cam breathes against the back of her neck.

"You're sure?" she asks.

"I had to—I talked to him on the phone before," Cam answers. That's it. That's all he says. He doesn't say _why_ and that settles uncomfortably in Massie's stomach, knowing what she knows now. What she _saw._

"Right." She recovers easily, dialing that last number, a seven.

Cam slips out of the room, slumping onto a couch in the other room. She can see him, head propped on a pillow, one arm thrown over his eyes. He's tired, but he'll be there for her until the phone call is over.

Suddenly, as it rings, Massie grows nervous. Panicky, actually. Is it too early? Is it too late? What's the time difference? What if he's not there? What if he _is_? What is she supposed to _say_ —

"Hello?" And there it is, the voice that could probably start a million wars, somehow both bright and hindered with sleep. Massie immediately wants to hang up.

"Hi," she says slowly—or as slowly as someone can when the word they're using only has two letters in it.

She can feel her heart in her throat. It is crushing her windpipe. She may be choking.

There is a pause, just a breath between teeth, sharp and slight, and then Derrick greets, "Hey, babe." It's soft. Cozy. Like a well worn sweater on a cold night.

Massie swallows, lets it wash over her, this feeling. He is alive. Red blooded and breathing on the other end, just listening to her silence as she does his. She wishes she could touch him, feel how alive he is, but this is enough. It's enough for now.

 _For now_ , because she has no desire to hurt him. Not even a whisper of a thought. She just has this. This, and the urge to hold him, arms wrapped up in him so she can feel the beat of his heart against hers.

 _Alive, alive, alive._

God, she loves that word.

"What's the matter?" he asks.

"I, um…" Massie stares at what she thinks is an innocuous plant, taking in the colors and texture of its flower petals. "Had a nightmare." She reaches out to stroke a leaf and then finds her hand curling into a fist around the thing, destroying it. "Had a couple of them."

The flower falls to metal shards at her feet. Her palm comes back bloody, sliced between her thumb and pointer finger.

"What about?" She hears Derrick shifting, the groan of springs.

"What time is it there?" she asks instead. "Did I wake you?"

"Doesn't matter. What were your nightmares about?"

Massie looks around again, picking out which seemingly ordinary things are not as simple as they look in this room, and casually walks around, breaking them. When she tears the curtains to find they were, in fact, just curtains, she realizes she may be a bit overzealous.

"Massie," Derrick orders softly. It's weird how someone can sound so nice telling her what to do.

Massie ponders this, gazing out the window at the stars that light up the sky and the foliage that speeds by in a blur. "You," she answers casually. There is a constellation up above; she thinks it is called the Big Dipper. "They're all about you."

About him dying.

About her killing him.

About Kemp killing him.

About him really being the person they wanted her to believe he was.

Dead, dead, dead.

Her worst fears, she realizes, are him dead, both literally and figuratively.

There is a beat of silence where he digests this and Massie, nerves tight, watches the lone bug she left standing blink its red, recording eyes at her.

"Sometimes," Derrick says slowly, "I dream that I was too late."

"Too late for what?" she asks, lowering her voice. The bug creeps closer because it can't hear.

"Everything. All of it."

The way his voice breaks at the start of the second sentence gives her pause, and Massie cocks her head, very reminiscent to the dog she hasn't seen in almost a year. He is tired, she knows; she can hear it, the weight of it, but is he tired because she woke him or because he's fighting off his own demons too?

"I stand there while Kemp strangles you, I can't get to you and Skye kills you, I miss when the mountain lion knocks you to the ground." Derrick takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I never get to tell you I'm in love with you. I agree to fuck strangers the day after they've had you murdered. Always too late. Never on time. Never when it counts."

"You've always been there when it counts," she breathes.

He chokes on his laugh. "If only you knew how wrong you are."

Massie bites her lower lip, an inexplicable heat rising within her. "When it counts," she amends, "you are always there for me."

"Not always," he replies. "Not now."

"But you _are_ here now," she argues. "You answered the phone."

"Yeah, but—" Derrick cuts off, falls silent.

The silence between them is unnerving, but Massie allows it, staring out the window. Cam snores behind her, asleep on the couch, and she counts the breaths he takes to fill the void.

Eventually Derrick whispers, "I don't like being apart from you. It feels… unnatural."

This is a secret he has kept inside for some time, Massie realizes. She can taste it.

"I don't either," she murmurs, "now that I've found you again."

"I kind of wish," Derrick starts, voice breaking, hopes of a child spilling from his lips, "that when you come back here you didn't have to get back on that train."

Massie curls her fist into her pajamas, feels the weight of the lump in her throat as it expands, full of sadness and disappointment and anger and all of those other words. She forces herself to talk past it, even though it hurts, and says, "What if I didn't?"

"You can't," Derrick answers. "They'll kill you."

"They won't," she says, but she doesn't know that. Doesn't know anything that's coming out of her mouth. "They love to make people miserable so they'd let me live. They'd let you live, too, and then they'd torture us the way they torture Josh and Cam."

So quickly, so quietly she almost misses it: "They're already torturing me."

"How?" Massie demands.

Derrick hums, this loud, grating sound, and skirts the question. "You'd stay?" he asks, like he hasn't heard her, like she isn't fighting back something akin to a sob, the thought of him unhappy making her nauseous. But he can't see that. He can't hear that, with the way she's steadying her voice. "You'd stay here? With me?"

"Of course I would." Her heart sings in acknowledgement. "I'd go anywhere with you."

There is a beat, a snuffle, and then:

"Run away," he breathes, a complete one-eighty from his previous _You can't_. "Run away with me."

"Derrick," she whispers, answering him without using words.

But he is ignoring that, clearly as wound up and startled as she is, though he hides his breakdowns quite well. "You wouldn't let me play the game correctly in the arena," he insists. "You wanted to change all the rules because you wanted me. Change all the rules now because _I_ want _you_ , Massie. Change them and run away with me. We could do it. We could—we could live off the land somewhere and I'd fish and you'd hunt and it could just be us. Together. Forever. Fuck everything else."

Her voice cracks, her heart cracks, her body cracks—she cracks cracks cracks—and says, "We _can't._ "

" _Please_ ," he pleads. "Please. Don't make me—" He coughs, swallows whatever he's about to say. "You have no allegiances to anything. I don't need to be part of this rebellion. I don't need anything but you."

That is not true. He needs to be part of the rebellion. If not both of them, then one, because without them, without the two Careers that destroyed a decades long tradition, there would be nothing left. The world would continue on as it does, with parents and siblings being murdered and bodies being sold and minds being manipulated and emotions being frayed and toyed with. They _need_ him because when it counts he's always there. When it counts he's braver than her.

But in the dead of the night, miles and miles between them, neither of them are as brave as they could be, so Massie merely asks, "Where would we go?"

"Anywhere," he responds. "Everywhere."

They fall down a rabbit hole.

…

"I've given you enough," Massie tells the bug on the wall after she's hung up.

She lifts her hand and slams it so hard against it that the heel of her palm aches, but she cannot feel the pain over the strength of the nausea coursing in her stomach.

…

The night they pull into Twelve, Massie has a dream. It is painted in beautiful colors and lovely sounds and she smells all the things she's ever loved before—her mother's perfume, the salt that never seems to leave Derrick no matter how hard they try, the lavender of her baths, the sandlewood of Cam, the sharpness of her father. Its story is simple: she cannot place where she is, but it follows the template as her nightly phone calls with Derrick.

They are somewhere together, with no tours and no clients, and they are happy. In this particular one, she is making an apple pie. She doesn't know how to do that in real life, but it is easy enough in her mind, and Derrick peels the apples for her and kisses the side of her head. He's going back outside for something, and she doesn't want him to leave their little cottage, but she's just being selfish and needy. He tells her he will never go that far from her, and she accepts that, cutting the fruit into pieces and layering them in her crust.

But most of Massie's dreams turn to nightmares, and this one is no exception.

There is quiet as she works, humming along to a song she can't really hear, and then there is a growl. A low, menacing growl.

And then the snapping of teeth.

And then the telltale breaking of bone.

And then—

Nothing.

Massie drops her knife and skids out of the house. They are on the outskirts of Eleven, that's where they chose to live, and they are normally very careful about being seen. No one has noticed them in months, and yet…

She shouldn't have left the knife in the kitchen.

She feels stupid for doing so, but it's not like there's much she can do now. She was too slow. She was too late.

They've been found.

Massie jerks awake with a strangled gasp before she can fully see Derrick's mangled corpse, a pack of mountain lion mutts standing over him like they had Andy in her Games. She places a hand over her heart, feels the painful beating there, and breathes in slowly through her nose and out through her mouth.

The details fade quickly as they always do, but the anxiety lingers, wrapping itself around her like a blanket. She itches for it to leave, unwelcome here, but it likes her—panic has always found a home in her heart, unnerving and unsettling her, and allowing other negative emotions to fester.

She blinks and she sees blood painted on the inside of her eyelids. Derrick's blood, Derrick's body, as a muzzle chomps down on him. He hadn't made a sound in her dream when that happened… almost like he'd been ready for it. Resigned to it. He hadn't mentioned why he was leaving the house either…

A shudder runs through her and she continues to blink up at the ceiling. There is blood and bone and golden fur and sharp teeth in her mind and that is all.

It scares her, how easily good things can turn bad. How easily someone can be taken away.

She pulls in a ragged breath and twists, pressing her forehead into Cam's chest beside her. She likes that he hasn't left her alone at night, but she doesn't like that he has nightmares of his own. His are less noticeable than hers—probably because he's had years with them—but she still cannot shake the way he blurted _please don't touch me_ , voice thick with tears even as he slept.

He won't risk calling Josh like she calls Derrick, letting her take as long as she wants. She wonders if it's selfish of her to take that option from him.

As if he knows she is thinking about him, his arms snake around her, a hand carding fingers through her hair. He is so warm. She feels so very cold.

"Sorry," she whispers.

"It's okay," he says. "What happened?"

Her words are small and muffled against him. "The usual."

"Where were you this time?"

"Eleven, I think." The memory is fuzzy. "There were apples."

Cam hums, low in his throat, and continues playing with her hair. They haven't talked about it, she doesn't want to, but she thinks, now, that he'd have been a good brother if given the chance. If they'd had the chance to grow up like that. He's doing a good job of it now.

"We're in Twelve," he tells her. "You'll have to meet the mayor in an hour."

"I know," Massie replies. She doesn't want to. But she knows. "I think you should call Josh. Let him know you got here."

"He'll know when they televise it," Cam says. "You call Derrick before we have to get off."

Massie shakes her head. "I need to get ready. There isn't any time. Go call Josh. I got rid of all the bugs in the room."

Cam stills. "Even the one _in_ the phone?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"Water."

A week ago, the Capitol aired Kristen's Games. Massie had been bored, having already read most of the more interesting books on the train, and watched them. They'd last a little over a week, the Careers picking off the weak, and Kristen spent each night they were off hunting taking apart one of those plates the tributes stand on for the countdown. She reassembled the pieces into something else, something smaller, and waited until everyone had been herded into one area. It was raining. She loved that.

Kristen climbed a tree, sat on the highest branch, and dropped the thing into a puddle. The Gamemakers had ushered the remaining tributes into the wettest part of the arena, most likely to see what Kristen was planning.

She accidentally electrocuted herself in the process and became a mass murderer they often compare to William Block.

Massie was inspired.

When the train hit a pothole, swerving, Massie took her glass of water and poured it all over the audio bug in the phone's receiver. It let out a few sparks and fritzed out completely in a manner of minutes. Testing it out, she no longer heard the clicking noise the thing made every fifteen seconds, collecting data, and stopped being so vague as she talked to Derrick. She told him, and Sage, and Dune, and even Josh what to do to have private conversations.

Cam curls his hand around her shoulder, the meaning behind her words settling in his stomach. "What would I even say?" he asks.

It's not like they left each on bad terms, but he chose Massie over Josh. He'd _been_ choosing Massie.

They'd gotten into a full blown argument when she was dragged to that horrendous meeting with Angela. Cam against Josh. Josh against Cam. Awful, ugly things had been thrown at each of them, and Massie pretended she couldn't see the way both of them wanted to break down into tears. Pretended she couldn't hear the way Cam picked her, over and over.

 _My **sister**_ , he'd said.

 _What about **me**? _Josh'd demanded.

"Be honest with him," Massie says, swallowing around the lump in her throat. "Tell him the truth."

"What does that even mean?" Cam wonders.

Massie shimmies back, removing herself from the warmth of his embrace, and sits up. Cam remains where he is, all sleep-mussed and pink-cheeked. His eyes follow her, though, confusion setting in the kaleidoscope of blue and green. She fights back a smile, just a turn of the lips; for someone so smart, so good at taking care of her, he's incredibly dense.

"He told me he's in love with you," she murmurs. They'd removed the bugs from here, too, so their sharing the same bed couldn't be used against them, but it's better to be safe, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

Cam blinks, cheeks heating up, and prods his tongue against the pillowy flesh of his lower lip.

"And you told me you haven't done anything with him but you want to," she continues, amused by his reaction. Where is the flirty boy he always is now? "I feel like maybe your first step should be to tell him you're in love with him too."

"He knows," Cam croaks.

"Does he?" Massie asks. "Did you tell him?"

Slow: "No."

"Then he doesn't know," she returns. "He only speculates. Tell him. This life is too short and too miserable to keep things like that to yourself."

Her brother looks at her, and she can see where they share similarities. They've got sharp noses, and high cheekbones, and their eyes, though different colors, are the same shape.

"I'm scared," he admits.

"I'm scared all the time," Massie says, "but that doesn't stop me from telling Derrick how I feel about him."

…

Jakkob has become something of a legend since Massie's Games, so he and her normal crew are not able to travel the country with her. She refuses to work with anyone else, especially people who don't already know her, so she's left to her own devices, and a massive traveling closet of outfits pre-approved by her designer. It takes up a whole car, and, unfortunately for Massie, that car is the one they normally use for District One's male tribute.

She knows it's ridiculous to be wary of a room, one that has been cleaned and rid of its past inhabitant so thoroughly that there is _no_ plausible way she can still smell that musky scent of Kemp's, but she does. _She does._

It takes her a moment—several minutes, actually—to move past it, to not see him in corners and shadows and lounging on the bed they've laid most of her jewelry on. She even hears his rough laugh tickle at the back of her neck and turns, expecting him there. He isn't.

She killed him.

Thirty-six stab wounds to his body. Precise. In and out. In and out.

He isn't here because of her. Because she discovered her self-worth. Some part of her is relieved to know this. Is relieved she is not still harboring a hatred for Derrick, who she'd been convinced had killed her best friend. Her potential partner, if they hadn't been in the Games together.

She still holds that hatred, though, however tiny it may be, but it's a hatred that she holds for herself. There is a part of her, so small she can ignore it on most days, that is mad at her for being the one to kill him. That's mad she went against everything they've ever done, ever been. At seven, she met him, and they linked pinkies and she promised she wouldn't be the one to kill him, if they got picked. Every year after they swore the same thing.

Massie would say, "I love you. I will not kill you. I will not break the trust we have in each other."

Kemp would say nothing of note, skirting around the promises. That last year, he merely kissed her, because he knew she had a crush on him.

She did not realize until it was too late that he never promised her the same. He always knew. It was always going to be him, and, quite honestly, who would be better? Massie always thought the best way to go, the most _honorable_ way to go, would be by his blade. She held onto that for years—begged him, even, because she did not want to be a murder in the bloodbath or a victim of a Two or the casualty by some crafty other District as they hunted.

But then she met Derrick, and she saw his hands, and the way he could hold his body weight so easily while climbing a rope, and the trident he held and wielded and killed with. She wanted _him_ to be the one, because he was strong and powerful and funny and had this smile that she thought would be nice to see when he plunged that trident into her chest—

And then she realized she was confusing all of that for attraction.

She was attracted to Kemp. Kemp was attracted to her. She was attracted to Derrick. Derrick was attracted to her. The difference between them… only one of them actually liked her.

He deserved to die, Kemp. He really did. He was terrible, and manipulated, and wanted her gone. He saw her as a threat. He had been strangling her. And yet…

And yet—

She cries as she stands in this room, imagining him everywhere, and runs her hands over the dresses and pants and shirts she has to choose to wear today.

She wonders what would have come of him had he been the Victor of their Games. Would he have missed her?

Her mind does not allow her to answer that question.

She chooses an outfit instead.

It is brutally cold here in Twelve, a hard winter at its peak, and so Massie spends most of her time debating what coat to wear. She'll leave it buttoned up, not trusting the heating systems here, and make sure her pants and shoes are the vocal points of her outfit if her jacket is not. She's already chosen a cute pair of earmuffs, pastel pink fur a nice contrast to her dark hair.

She is debating between a hooded bomber jacket lined in fur and a peacoat that may look too much like the one she'd tried to steal from Derrick in the Capitol when Cam strolls in. He has an easy smile on his face, too easy, like he's been drugged, and the gait in which he walks is slow and self-assured.

Massie watches him and snorts.

He blinks up at her, lips parting even more so until he looks like a wolf about to eat his prey.

"Calm down on the smile there, lover boy," Massie admonishes. "I take it it went well?"

Cam drops onto the couch against the far wall and surveys the room. "I take it it isn't going well in here?"

Massie tugs the bomber jacket from the hanger and throws it over the earmuffs. She already knows she plans on wearing those black and white checkered pants and a pair of tall, heeled boots, and crosses her arms over her chest.

"It went well," Cam tells her, ducking his head. She can see the pink travel up his neck. "We… we're on the same page finally. I hadn't realized we weren't."

"Details I care little about." Massie waves a hand at him and begins pulling her shirt off to change into the black long sleeved shirt she's decided to wear under her jacket. "When you told him you were in love with him, what did he say?"

"Massie," Cam snips, looking away as her skin becomes more exposed.

"What?" she demands, shrugging into the other. "I want to know."

Cam licks his lips and mumbles, "He called me an idiot."

"Well, you are one," agrees Massie. "I hope that isn't what's put you in such a good mood."

"No." Cam watches her tie the top of her shirt into a bow. "He told me—he told me it would never matter who I had to sleep with, or how many of them it turned out to be by the time this is all over, he'll always love me."

Massie wisely chooses not to comment on the way his voice softens when he says _love_.

"And he said," Cam starts. He stops, apples of his cheeks the color of ripe tomatoes, and looks at her, scrutinizing, like he isn't sure he should continue. She stares right back, waiting. It's not like he doesn't know every embarrassing detail about her life. "He said that when I'm ready for it, he'll show me what it's like to have sex with someone who really loves me, and doesn't just say they do."

Massie stops buttoning her pants to _shriek_.

If possible, Cam gets even redder.

"Cam!" she yells. " _Cam_!"

" _Lower your voice_ ," he hisses, like they have company. Like she's going to inconvenience somebody else. Like she didn't spend hours dismantling every bug and camera and microphone on this entire train.

"No!" she shouts. "You love him, he loves you, he wants to sleep with you! This is the best news I've heard all day! You should be jumping! Why aren't you jumping?"

Cam shrugs. "I've never told anyone that before," he says. "I've seen plenty of Victors tell people they love them and then terrible things happen, so I'm just… waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess."

"People are allowed happy endings, Cam," Massie tells him.

"Yeah," he agrees, "but we aren't people, are we?"

…

They're pawns.

…

It's awful. The tour is _awful_.

There are cameras in her face, and microphones everywhere, including on the floor, where she trips over wires, and angry, sooty faces of the inhabitants of District Twelve. There are special spots for the families of the tributes she'd murdered, parents that wish she weren't the one on stage, siblings who cry when they see the pictures of their brother flickering behind her.

Massie swallows back her tears as she meets Mr and Mrs Lyons's faces, drawn and haggard, and sees Todd in their eyes and Claire in the determined sets of their mouths. She looks over the heads of Miles' family, unable to find in herself to give them the closure they need. She'd hunted that kid for sport. _Sport._ Made a game of it, and here she is, telling them how great their kid was, as if she didn't laugh the whole time she chased after him. As if she didn't use this as part of a competition with Kemp.

Once again, she does not know how to act. Cam stares at her from the side of the stage, where he is dressed to match her, wearing a button up shirt the same pink as her earmuffs. Their annoying escort is by her side to ease the tension if she screws up, but neither of them can help her when it comes to the war inside her brain.

This was the point of it all. They want her to fuck up right here, right now. All to make it easier for her to disappear or something similar. Derrick thinks they'll kill her. She thinks they won't. She has an inkling of what they'll do to her just to hurt him. To hurt her.

Two personalities collide within her. She knows not to listen to the one the Capitol made and focuses on the speech she's memorized.

Her voice breaks when she begins talking about how resilient Miles was. They don't believe her. They can't. They _hate_ her.

Massie rubs her palms on her pants and looks out towards the crowd. She lamely finishes thanking them for her hospitality, confused by the reaction she is getting from them.

Where she expected anger, maybe even getting things thrown at her, she gets nothing but a fierce resolve and a three-fingered salute. It is quiet. It is strong. It is unnerving. It is _hopeful_.

Moreover, it is started by the parents of the tributes she'd—and no one else—killed.

She blinks at them, frowning, and shoves her fingers into shaky fists at her sides. What does this mean? What _is_ this? _What are they saying?_

"I'm sorry," she says again.

"Thank you," she says again.

The second the Justice Building doors shut behind her, Massie is in tears.

…

It goes the same way, more or less, in each district.

Capitol TV reports mainly on her outfits, uninterested in the point of the tour itself, though all of it is still broadcasted for those curious enough. She hopes no one is, because as it turns out, she's shit at public speaking and even worse at being neutral when all she wants to do is scream.

In Eleven, she wears a patterned dress and meets Andy Ryan's younger sister, Olivia, who slaps her right across the face during her dinner.

In Ten, she relaxes, having nothing to do with these people or the deaths of their tributes, and dons a denim jumpsuit the Capitol raves over for the two days it takes her to get to Nine.

And when she gets there, to Nine, there is a smattering of applause, like they are happy she's there, happy she's alive, and the mayor speaks words to her that are downright traitorous. Cam takes over then, all dimples and smiles, and whispers about the rebellion in a shadowed corner of their ballroom.

There is a girl in Eight, who embraces Massie like she is her long lost sister, and says, "I want to be just like you when I grow up!" Massie doesn't know what that means. Another girl, one closer to her age, sidles up to her at the party they hold, with two glasses of champagne, one for her, one for Massie, and demands to know _everything_ about that _snack of a boy_ she's snagged. Massie downs the alcohol and winks in response.

Massie is nauseous in Seven, looking out at the district of the girl she killed for just… being in the way. For not knowing who or where Derrick was. She stumbles over her speech, feels so terribly out of place in her short navy lace dress and lace up espadrilles, and spends the entirety of her luncheon with the important people of the district picking at her salad and overindulging on the strawberries they've put in the sangria they made for the occasion. Needless to say, Cam is not happy about spending the night holding her hair back as she vomits on the train.

She locks herself in her room the entire ride to Six, not even bothering to answer Cam when he says Derrick's on the phone. She hears them, though, talking about her. Worrying about her. She's pathetic. She wonders why they bother with her.

Massie dresses in green when she makes it to Six, and twists her hair back so it's out of her face. Here, she feels like a monster, having killed this girl for even worse fun than Twelve. Derrick gave her _incentives—_ sexual incentives—for what ended up turning into a game of torture. The fact that they aren't trying to kill her on sight is astonishing. The fact that they regard her the same way they did in every other district is even more so. There is no need for them to like her, to believe in her. She's brutal and terrible and not worthy of this. Of them. She spends the whole night as drunk as possible, steadfastly avoiding the Victor here, Dylan Marvil.

It doesn't work.

Dylan Marvil is so beautiful it's scary. She's like a Siren, straight from mythology, with gorgeous red curls and those fingernails she's had sharpened into claws.

"You need to slow down," Dylan says to her. She grabs her glass, full of straight vodka, and takes a swig from it. Her nails, painted the color of her hair, of _blood_ , clink like the cubes inside. "The stuff here is stronger than you're used to."

Massie blinks at her and shrugs. "S'fine with me. I literally do not want to remember my time here. No offense."

Dylan drinks from her glass again, regarding her coolly over the rim. "Offense is not taken," she replies after a moment, swishing the alcohol in her mouth. "No one hates you, you know. Not here. We understand what happened."

"We," Massie repeats. "Maybe you. Not everyone here. I made—I did what I did because Der—"

"You did what you did to survive," the other woman interrupts. "We all do. Doesn't matter if you're Reaped or not. Survival comes first and we do our best to make it to another day." She hands Massie her glass back, significantly less full than before. "Towards the end, I started to enjoy ripping throats out. I keep my nails like this as a reminder of that."

"A reminder of what?"

"You think you're a monster, Massie Block?" Dylan asks. "I know I am." She flicks a long nail against another, the sound pinging in Massie's ears. "I made sure I'd never forget."

(Later, Massie uses her drunkenness and the fact that no one knows she's related to Cam to loop her arms around him in the middle of the party. He catches her easily, mouth drawn into a tight line.

"Hi, babe," she says loudly, and leans forward to whisper, "Is Dylan part of it, too?"

Cam squeezes her waist, brushes hair from her neck, and ducks down to answer, "Yes.")

And if anything could get worse, it happens in District Five. Already whirling from the visit to Six, Dylan Marvil's words running round and round her head, Massie remembers the way the knife she held elongated and just fucking _speared_ Carrie. Granted Carrie was going to shoot a rock into her face, but she hears the squishy sound of the blade in her brain, can feel the blood oozing down her arm, and wants to run away. They do not let her and she speed reads her speech, guilt ridden and tired. She meets all of Carrie's younger brothers and does not feel even a lick of shame when she cries as the littlest one hands her a card that merely reads _We understand_ , all of their tiny signatures scribbled on the inside.

Massie spends much of her next train ride staring at that card, torn between ripping it up and keeping it forever. She doesn't want to have this on her conscience, doesn't want to remember. She shoves it in one of her many bags, knowing she must.

…

The humidity seeps into the train long before they enter Four. Massie cannot find a place comfortable enough to lounge and sucks on popsicles that turn her mouth blue and red and green, like she's a child again, running around One with the other kids her age—before she joined the Academy.

She sees the ocean just after she smells it, and risks the heat reflecting off the window to watch it grow closer and closer as they careen into Four's train station. If she had it her way, she'd run right into it, but she has responsibilities here.

So she stops eating things that change the color of her tongue and slips into an outfit that is so much more different than others she's worn. This is the first time she'll be someplace this warm, though Eleven and Ten were just as muggy.

She wrangles her hair, long now that she's traveled practically the whole country and hasn't had an opportunity or the desire to cut it, into a braid that wraps around her head. Strands fall out in this bohemian sort of way, which matches the vibe she's created by tucking a tiny little white tank top into a long, flowing pink skirt. There is a slit down the left side that shows off much of her leg, so she makes sure to coat it in shimmering body lotion so she shines each and every time the light hits her. She ignores Cam when he snorts knowingly at her; she doesn't need him to tell her she's doing the _most_ right now. She knows. It's fine.

He takes a bit more care in his appearance but she doesn't mention it to him because she's _nice_ like that.

And, honestly, that shade of blue really is his color.

"After this, there are only three more," Cam reminds her, coming behind her to straighten her twisted shirt strap. "And then you're free."

"Free to do what, exactly?" she asks.

Cam shrugs. "That's what the talent portion of your life is about, I guess." He takes her hand, squeezes it. "Come on. Let's get the boring stuff over with, shall we?"

In every other district, they've been greeted by some sort of official or another. Sometimes a previous Victor shows up halfway through the tour of the district. Sometimes they don't.

Here, Massie expects more than she gets.

Here, they merely get Josh, who leans against the rail, squinting at the train car door, waiting for them.

Cam stiffens minutely next to her, nerves on edge, and she pinches the skin above his elbow. He lets out a breath, deflates, offers Josh a smile that doesn't really translate to _holy shit I'm terrified to be near you after all the things we said to each other._

Josh looks like he always does. Kind of like an asshole. Not at all perturbed by the appearance of his sort of boyfriend, whom of which he promised to ravish properly when he wanted him to.

This makes Massie laugh for about thirty seconds. Then she is reminded of the empty space beside him that should hold Derrick. Or even Sage. Hell, she'd be willing to meet Dune for the first time right now if she couldn't get the other two.

The lack of them, of Derrick especially, makes her stomach flip.

Something is wrong. She can feel it.

Josh lifts a hand in greeting or to block the sun, she doesn't know, and says, "Hey. Welcome to Four."

They've both been here before.

"You're early," he continues very casually, which is another sign something's off. "Great for you, bad for me. I can take you around to Victor's Island, if you want to see it. That's where we all get to live, all nice and secluded. Water on all sides. We take a boat to get there. It's got coconut trees."

"Our houses are not as far away from everything else," Cam comments easily. "Why are you so far?"

Josh clicks his tongue. "Turns out regular people are scared of murderers," he answers. "Who'd have thought?" He grins, sharp and feral. "Also the water rose over the strip of land that kept us tethered to the mainland. Global warming, am I right?"

"Convenient," Cam says again in that weird tone of voice.

"I'd say," Josh replies. "Follow me, then."

As they walk, Josh keeps talking about this island of his. He tells them about the wonderful little cove at the edge of the beach, so far out one time they thought he'd drowned or something when he didn't come back for a while. He mentions the fish, the seahorses, the whales, the dolphins.

"And," he adds, holding his hand out for Massie to take as she boards this luxurious boat, "not a bug in sight. They don't take well to the waves. Did I mention they can crash right against the houses? We love that."

"Not entirely useless, are you, Massie?" he finally says to her directly, eyeing her. "You're doing fine on your Tour."

Cam rolls his eyes and looks out at the water that ripples past them. "I told you you just had to give her time."

"I am very impatient," Josh retorts.

"Sure you are."

Josh grins again, softer this time, and flicks water at Massie. "In all seriousness," he begins, "how are you doing? Five looked rough for you. Was Dyl mean to you?"

"No," Massie answers. "She was fine. I'm fine. I'll live. Just four more to do, right?"

"And then we all get to go back to the Capitol for you!" Josh exclaims sarcastically. "The joy of my life."

Massie stares at him, and the way he can somehow get his eyes to glitter in amusement when he really hates something and finds that fascinating. She can hardly keep her true emotions off her face much less create something else entirely.

She turns away, watching the shore and the beach and the mainland of Four get farther and farther away. Ignores the nausea the boat illicites in her. Ignores the way Cam gets over himself just a little bit and slides closer to Josh, who knocks his knee with his own, but says nothing.

After what feels like a lifetime, they come to a stop. The sand of this beach is tinted pink, beautiful and sparkling, and Massie knows if she were just a normal girl, she'd be demanding the two of them stop what they were doing to take pictures of her here. But she is not normal and this is not the time, so she merely slips her sandals off and follows after Josh, who begins to trudge towards the middle of the island, where she can see rows of beach houses, all identical save for the colors of their doors.

The sun beats down on them stronger and harsher and she is glad for the hairstyle she chose. She is even gladder she opted to put on sunscreen, but she knows she will have to reapply immediately if she doesn't want to start burning.

Josh stops suddenly and says, "This is where Massie will go." He drops a hand to her shoulder. "Be gentle. He's not supposed to be here right now, and he's had a… rough go of it this past month."

Her mouth is dry, but she manages to ask, "What do you mean he's not supposed to be here?"

Cam looks annoyed, brows pinched, bridge of his nose already pink from the sun, having understood what Josh is saying without any explanation.

Massie feels the answer roil in her gut but wants to pretend that's not what it is.

"He should be in the Capitol," Josh answers slowly, carefully, like she's a ticking time bomb. Everything he says comes out slow, like she's wading through molasses. "He's been booked solid since you got to Five, and not with the nice people, either."

She is going to throw up right here. Right on his doorstep, right on the pink sand, right on her stupid toes, nails painted white after she got bored somewhere between Seven and Six.

"Who," she demands.

"Jamie Marvil paid for him for the entire time you'd be here," Josh tells her with a wince. "He's ignoring it."

Jamie Marvil. Of course. Of course of course _of course._ Massie's hands ball up into fists. Her rings twist and scrape against her skin in such a way she's convinced she's made herself bleed, but she hasn't. Not there, at least, but on her palms, where she's digging scratch marks.

Cam grabs at her to stop her, because that's a thing she does sometimes. She inflicts pain on herself when her inner, emotional turmoil is too much for her to handle. She did it while she read the letters; she did it when she needed an anchor from her wavering sanity in the Games; she is doing it now.

"I hate her," Massie hisses. "I want to murder her."

Her brother runs his thumb over the wounds, the salt in the air making them smart, and rubs at the blood she lets stick to her skin. "Don't touch your shirt," he tells her. "Go inside and wash your hands before you see him. You'll give him a heart attack."

But she's too busy looking at Josh to hear him. "There's something else," she says.

"Let him tell you," is Josh's response, and then he is taking Cam by the elbow and dragging him across the street, to a house with a yellow door.

…

Like a sane person, Massie fluctuates between dreaming up scenarios in which she ends Jamie Marvil's stupid life and creating situations where Derrick is—she doesn't even _know_ , what is worse than what he's already faced? What is worse than the knowledge that all of his choices have ended in the deaths of his family members? Nothing, that's what, but Massie's overactive imagination pens stories that make all of that seem like just a blip on the scale, and she has to breathe steadily through her nose and out of her mouth lest she hurts herself more or does something stupid like try to leave this island.

And maybe the definition of stupid is washing the blood off her hands in the slow waves behind Derrick's house, but she barely feels the sting of the water as the salt washes her clean. Her body is thrumming too hot, too fast, too jittery for her to be aware of much, just her nervous heart and her racing thoughts.

He's _so close_ to her again and she doesn't know what to do. Go in? Give him space? _Knock_? Follow Josh and Cam to what is presumably Josh's house? Interrupt whatever is happening there?

What's worse: she knows she managed to spend almost a week with him and not kill him, but what if all of her hard work is for naught the second she sees him? It's been _months._ She's half-convinced the order of her Tour (numerically, not geographically sound) is to ensure that when she gets back here, to Four, she'll be the same person, or worse, she was when she left the Capitol.

But the guilt that ate at her when she attempted to kill him, once she found it, was so strong she doesn't think she can bear to face that again…

And it's not like the full days they spent in her bed were full of softness. For someone who almost died from strangulation, Massie really has a thing for—

Okay, _noooo_ , not. the. time.

She stands, lets the water lap at her ankles, soak the flimsy material of her skirt. It's really warm, the water is, but it's not as hot or sticky as the weather, so she stays there a bit, looking up at the house with the red door.

Red is Derrick's favorite color, which he said on television, so either the people of Four or the Capitol made sure he lived in a place that designated itself as his by that color.

One of the windows is not closed off by curtains and light streams into the room beyond, right in the middle on the second floor. Massie peers at it, flinching when something green wraps around her foot, and then decides to go in. She is not going to waste the precious time she's been given debating what to do. She is very rarely not a girl of action; she is not turning into one now.

Beads of sweat race each other down her back as she marches through the sand up to his back door. Her feet are covered in the little grains, but she does not notice it. Does not bother with it, lets them lead a trail to Derrick's bedroom door. She only recognizes the discomfort when she's shifting her weight from heel to heel, standing just out of sight, lingering in shadows.

Her heart constricts, twists, and breaks, maybe, as she peeks in. Derrick is face first in his bed, Capitol-approved—Capitol- _demanded_ —outfit thrown haphazardly around him, like he couldn't get out of it fast enough. She knows the feeling, thinking about all the dresses and pants and skirts and shirts she's wasted, balled in corners of her train car room.

But there's more to it than that, she realizes. The skin on his back is raised angrily. There are splotches of purple and black and green and yellow around his hipbone, where his boxers can't really cover, and at the base of his neck.

Massie is mad all over again, and she propels herself forward, hitting her knuckles against the door in a three beat knock.

The sound makes him wince, but he doesn't move. "I have a two and a half hours, Sage," he mumbles into his pillow. "I'll have myself put back together by then."

"I thought we decided not to keep things from each other," Massie quips easily, using her knee to force the door open more. It's an interesting thing for her to say, since they have been actively avoiding talking about many things when they're together, but the sentiment remains.

Derrick twists so quickly he is nothing but a golden blur against the green backdrop of his comforter. He squints at her, like she's not sure she's really there, and forces himself onto his elbows. "Massie?"

She avoids looking at the parts of him she's touched and kissed and clung to, and says, "Hi."

Still confused, still not convinced, he responds, "You're not supposed to be here."

"And so I've heard," she returns, "neither are you."

There is a moment where they merely stare at each other, and his eyes widen, and her body temperature rises, and he blurts, again, "You're not supposed to be here."

"I know," she says. "We were early—"

Derrick shaking his head has her stumbling to a stop, her explanation vanishing. "You're _not_ supposed to _be here_ ," he repeats. "They can't have figured out I left yet. I'm not supposed… not for another hour, at least… _how_ —"

He's tripping over himself, over his thoughts, over his tongue, over his words, and Massie can only watch him tie himself into a knot. She doesn't understand.

"How did you get here?" he finally asks. "Did they tell you? Did they _bring_ you?"

"Train at first," she answers, ignoring her every instinct that tells her to demand why he's acting like this. Josh's parting words echo in her ears. "Then a boat. Then I walked." She doesn't know why she explains it like that, why she maps out the whole thing.

Derrick sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. Surveys her. His eyes soften as he takes her in, gaze flicking over her, and then the look is gone, expelled so suddenly she thinks she may have imagined it. His guard goes right back up.

"Where'd the train come from? What route did you take from Five? What'd you do on it?"

Massie doesn't like this third degree and she wrinkles her nose in distaste—at that and the question. "You think I paid attention?" she asks. "You also just answered your first question with your second and I painted my nails and bothered Cam and read a dreadfully boring book."

He swallows; it's rough and looks like it hurts. "Stupid," he mumbles at himself. He looks up at her again, and his eyes literally sparkle. "How… how am I supposed to know it's really you?"

"You can ask me to tell you something real," she blurts before what he says settles in her. "It's what I ask you to do when I need help."

She is going through what this has to mean for him if he's asking her this when he all but slumps in front of her, unease and stress and fight uncoiling from around his shoulders. She almost misses it, the way he sighs like he's finally able to stop holding his breath, mulling over _how am I supposed to know it's really you?_

And then he's standing in front of her, knocking his forehead against hers. "Tell me something real, then," he requests, fond smile growing wider.

"After you trained with me because I'm a crazy idiot—like who decides to go into the arena already lacking sleep?—I went back up to your floor. I'm not sure what I was going to do, and I turned back down immediately, but—but I was there. For, like, three seconds."

"So I could have made a move as early as training?" Derrick asks.

"Probably," Massie says, thinking about it. "Maybe. I'm not sure what I would have done, but I was very interested in your hands." She glances at them, where they tighten their hold on her hips. "Still am, if I'm honest."

"Hm," Derrick murmurs, turning into a different version of himself, running his nose down the length of her jawline. "Why?"

She feels his fingers inch away from what has always been determined as socially acceptable.

"At first I wanted you to kill me with them," she tells him honestly. If this admission bothers him he makes no move to show it. "Then I realized I just wanted you to touch me."

She brought it up; she led herself into this; she knows it's her doing. She doesn't want to think about where those hands of his _are_ right now and swallows a mouthful of saliva as it settles like a puddle on her tongue. "Why aren't you wearing any clothes?" she rasps, shifting her legs as he presses her against the doorframe.

(Why'd she think _that_ was smart to say?)

"Why are you?" he shoots back.

"Be careful," Massie snaps when he starts tugging at her. "I have to wear this later. I'm not changing because you're a savage."

"Is that what you want?" he asks. He slows down, fumbling with the zipper that keeps her skirt up. "Do you want me to—"

Massie lifts a hand, places it on his cheek, and plays with an errant curl by his ear. "I want whatever you want."

"You," he breathes as the material slips down her legs. "You you _you._ I want you. No one else."

And so she gives herself to him, and how he wants her is the complete opposite of the savagery he'd been in the process of offering up. Derrick is all slow, precise, _filling_ movements, gentle caresses, and long, languid kisses. He makes deliberate eye contact, twists his fingers in her hair, and makes her feel like she is the only person in the entire world. She ignores the way he cries when she tells him she loves him, because he looks like he needs to hear it, and hooks her leg tighter around his waist.

"Sorry," he says when it's over, and Massie has no concept of time right now, so she has no idea when that is. "I shoulda done that on the bed."

Massie shrugs, catching her breath. "S'good for my back," she offers. "I have a knot."

He blinks and she grins at him. "Obnoxious," he calls her softly.

She giggles and presses their mouths together, lips swollen and sore.

Derrick rests his forehead against hers again, casually brushing their noses together, and closes his eyes. Maybe _now_ they should be in the bed, but she doesn't suggest it.

His hands travel up and down the length of her body, like he's memorizing—or reacquainting himself with—her dips and curves. She lets him be for a while, listening to his steady breathing before asking him what happened.

For as long as it takes him to answer, she remains quiet, giving him all the time and space he needs. She is not used to being the sanest person—the one in most control—in the room, or even in this relationship, and finds the pressure off-putting. She'll have to work on that, since she always uses him as an anchor.

"I think he's punishing me for the things you do wrong," Derrick admits quickly. When she stiffens, he shakes his head, brushing his thumbs over her hip bones over and over. "It's fine," he tells her. "I'm—fine with it."

"You hesitated," she whispers, "and it is _not_ fine, Derrick, how can it be—"

"If you are not the one getting punished, then it is fine," he says hoarsely. Honestly.

Massie frowns, running her fingers through his hair. He lets out a contented little mewl and leans into her touch; she scratches at his scalp, right by his ear. "I don't like it."

"I will survive," he murmurs. "I always do."

"You didn't even—" Massie's voice breaks. "You didn't even know it was _me_ ," she breathes. "I needed to—I had to _convince_ you. How can you say you will survive if you can't even recognize me?"

He pulls away from her, makes her meet his eyes. She swallows, suddenly scared by the raw intensity found there. "I will _always_ recognize you," he says fiercely. "It just took me a second."

" _Why_?" she demands. "What are they doing to you?"

"Massie, please—"

"I deserve to know, Derrick! If they're doing this to you because of _me_ —"

He pulls away from her abruptly and shoves his legs into the pair of pants closest to him. They're flannel. They look soft. "No." It is final. It is definite.

Her mouth is dry as he falls back on his bed, dropping his head into his hands. He is so far away now, and she is so cold, and pulling her clothes back on after he helped her get out of them is uncomfortable.

But she will not become the girl he wants her to be, the one that stops asking. That's not her. It never was. So she zips her skirt back into place and she snaps, "Tell me."

" _No_ ," he answers back, just as meanly.

"It's about me—"

"And it's happening to _me_ so if I don't want to talk about it, I don't have to!"

Massie understands that, she does, but she doesn't like it. "You are the one person I expected to be honest with me," she blurts, playing the card she shouldn't. "I trust _you_ the most. I _fought myself_ for you and you—you—don't want to share what's—you don't want me to help you?"

" _Don't_ ," he hisses, teeth gnashed together. "Don't you _dare_ insinuate what I think you're—" He turns away, muscle in his jaw clenching and jumping. "Don't act like I won't move mountains for you."

"Just tell me," she begs, "don't turn us into people who don't—"

"I'm _sorry_ ," Derrick interrupts, not sounding sorry at all, "that I do not want you to know how fucking _helpless_ I am when the Capitol gets me. I'm sorry that I don't want you to see me as anything other than the person who can _protect_ you. I'm sorry that by keeping quiet I'm saving you from all the things I can't save myself from. I'm sorry that I love you so much—that I loved you even when they said you didn't love me—that I'm willing to suffer in silence if it means you'll never have to know how incredibly fucking _awful_ your godfather is! How incredibly fucking awful your _father_ is!"

Massie feels like maybe someone took her entire body and twisted it twisted it twisted it, wringing out like a rag and breaking all her bones in the process.

"You still want to know?" he asks her, and he's so mad now, he's so mad.

She wants to say no, because she doesn't, not anymore, but she does not have the luxury of backing out. Not after all of this.

"For the past _month_ , maybe longer, they've kept me in the Capitol, and they've drugged me, because that's what they do, and all my appointments, all of the girls I see—because they're specifically girls this time around—all of them, _they look just like you._ " Derrick is talking so fast and so loud and so angrily it hurts Massie's head, like he's punching her in the face over and over. "I can't tell if it's a stylistic choice on their end or if it's solely for my torment, but I am not allowed to say no, I have no idea how to even have a coherent thought, and I have to fuck girls who look like you but aren't you. I can't—the last couple of times I was so confused I didn't—" He breaks off, hand clenching into a fist that he drops immediately. "If Josh hadn't… if it weren't for him, I'd still—I'd _still—_ "

Massie takes a step forward, because she needs to do something, needs to hold him, needs to apologize.

He thrusts a hand between them. "I hope that was enough for you."

And then he is gone, striding past her, and leaving her alone in his room—in a place that hardly looks like he lives in it, but has his smell in every corner and crevice.

Massie sniffles, and then she's crying, and then she's crying crying crying, and the front door slams, like he debated turning back around before leaving, and Massie is happy for the first time all day that she decided against the full face of makeup she's been wearing in other districts.

…

"Come on, get up," Sage orders, standing over her. "You're going to wrinkle that skirt if you stay like that any longer and I do _not_ own a clothing iron."

Massie blinks up at her and blurts, "You don't own a clothing iron? What the hell."

"Don't need one," Sage says. "I live on the beach. Who cares?"

" _Me_ ," Massie is stunned into saying. "Me! I care. I care _a lot_."

"Do you live on the beach?"

"No, I live in a major city—"

"Then it doesn't matter if you care," Sage interrupts. "But it probably matters that I don't have one and you are ten minutes away from needing it to save this awfully cute outfit of yours."

Massie stands, narrowing her eyes at Sage, and stalks into the bathroom, where she scrutinizes her skirt. It will be fine, she guesses, but it might do to let it hang in a steamy room… She eyes the shower to her left thoughtfully.

"Do you think Derrick would mind if—" she starts, and then she stops, because she remembers what got her outfit in this stage in the first place.

Sage's hand grips her shoulder lightly. "It's not you he's mad at," she tells her. "It's… the whole situation. He was a _wreck_ when he got here last night."

"But I _made him_ … when he didn't want to…"

"And so did Dune," Sage explains. "He's currently got twelve stitches in his face, so I think you came out just fine. Give him a second to breathe. He's used to there being so many yous that aren't you. He doesn't know what to do."

Massie forces herself to meet her eyes in the mirror. "Was it really a month?" She doesn't even want to know how many of them get scheduled in a day.

"Since Six," Sage admits. "He's kind of lost track of time, but that's what spending all those weeks ingesting trackerjacker venom does to a person." She twists Massie's hair in her hands, knots it into an intricate braid that can only be done by the skilled hands of District Four. "I have a feeling they've been doing this to him for a while, but he's been quiet about it until now."

"All I do is hurt him," Massie murmurs. "Maybe it's better if I…" She can't even bear to say it, much less consider it.

No wonder Myner let her walk away unscathed from that party. He had other terrible things planned. And outing himself as her godfather at that exact time… it was all part of it. Because now he knows. Now Derrick knows the people in charge of him, the people doing this to him—they're her family. It's only a matter of time before he—

"No," Sage says to her. "It will be worse, I'm sure of it."

"I can't… I won't be able to live with myself if… if…"

"You ending things with him will probably hurt him more than this is," Sage tells her. "Couples fight, Massie. This isn't unusual."

"They don't fight over _this_ ," she retorts, rubbing her nose. It's red. "It's, like, normal things, like doing the dishes and hogging the blankets, not… not finding out he's been sleeping with your lookalikes because you can't keep it together." Her cheeks are blotchy and her eyes are glassy. Fuck. This is not what she wants to look like when she has to give her stupid speech. "And we aren't a couple."

"I mean, none of us can keep it together," Sage offers up.

Massie shoots her a look, annoyed and exhausted and ready to curl up in a ball. She has a feeling she'll never be able to do that again.

"It's true! It's just that… not all of us have shitty family members in high places either." Sage tucks a bobby pin from her own hair behind Massie's ear, then tugs, loosening the braid. "You should talk to Dylan Marvil, though." She whistles. "Talk about miserable family members, am I right?"

"I don't follow," Massie says blankly.

"They were nothing without Dylan. She's the reason her mom has all her shows and her sisters have all their shoes," Sage explains slowly, confused that Massie doesn't know this. "Without Dylan winning the Games, they'd still be poor and in Five. She doesn't even talk to them anymore, that's how disgusted she is by them."

"And I should talk to her about this—why?" Massie asks. "We're not friends."

The older woman continues to pull at Massie's hair, making the braid bigger and messier as she does so. Then, she says, changing the subject, "You and Derrick are the coupliest couple I've ever seen."

"You've never seen us," Massie rebuts.

And it's not like they've done anything particularly romantic together. It's just been a lot of kissing. And Massie has a habit of crying, the dam broken after that day in the arena.

God, she hates remembering who she was there. Who she _really_ was. While she likes knowing that she didn't really hate Derrick and he wasn't the literal _worst_ , she wishes real her could have been less of a wimp. There was really no need for her to have _so many feelings._

"I have, actually, thanks for remembering," Sage shoots back, "and even if I hadn't, I've heard enough."

Maybe it isn't what they do when they're together, but rather what they do for each other when they're apart.

This upsets Massie all over again, thinking of all the shit he's gone through just to make sure she doesn't have to. All the shit she's gone through because… because… because—she's got all these unnecessary, stupid feelings

Why does she have to have them? Why can't she be a robot? That would be so much better for everyone, she thinks.

"Come on," Sage says. "I want to show you something."

Massie, quite honestly, doesn't want to see anything, but follows anyway. They make their way back to Derrick's room, and he is still not here, even though they all have places to be soon—or maybe it will just be her now; maybe he won't want to come. She thinks having to navigate Four without him will actually kill her, so that thought finds an uncomfortable home in her chest.

Sage disappears into his closet and emerges with a purple lump of—is that rope?

"What is that," she bleats, even though she has eyes, and can see exactly what it is.

"I dunno what he's planning on doing with it, but it's a… it's a wedding tradition in certain parts of Four," Sage plows through the explanation, avoiding eye contact when she says _wedding_. "You knot something for the other person and they wear it until they die, or the marriage fails, whatever comes first. He may just be doing it sentimentally, I don't think he's trying to marry you, not yet, at least…"

"Why do you think this is for me?" Massie asks. Her heart thump-thump-thumps at Sage's words, _not yet, at least_ ringing loud louder loudest in her ears.

Sage shoots her a look. "Why would he need _purple rope_?"

"He wants a wide array of colors?"

"Why is he using every variation of the True Love knot known in Four?"

"For practice."

Sage sighs, brings the thing closer.

"It's not," Massie denies. "It can't be—"

"Just look at it," Sage says. "I know what it is. You don't have to acknowledge it for that reason, but—don't do anything rash, okay?"

Massie lets Sage wrap the length of rope around her wrist. It twists around three times, but that seems deliberate, the layering. There are so many different shades of purple in this, not just the stereotypical dark shade. There's lilac and lavender and violet and periwinkle and heather—more pieces of rope than she originally thought, twisted in an interesting pattern that, if what Sage says is correct, incorporates a little bit of the culture found in every corner of District Four.

"And if I… I accept this," she starts, to which Sage replies, "At its core, it's a promise."

"A promise of what?"

Sage smiles. "That's for you to decide."

Massie, marveling the time and energy that must've gone into this, finally notices the fraying bracelet on Sage's left wrist. Its vocal point is a pearl, knots thick around it to keep it in place. She's never seen Sage with anyone else before. Never heard her talk about anyone else, either. She goes back to looking at herself again, heart in her throat, and cannot imagine her body without this thing. It's as if she's had it her whole life, almost, and it is important and it is hers and she is not just going to ignore it. She can't, not when her body hums at the thought of it, her mind unable to stop seeing it.

"You said both people in the relationship make one of these?"

"And they exchange them," Sage says. "So, if you were to accept this, like you mentioned, you would get this and if you lived in Four, he'd get the one you made. It's like exchanging rings."

"But it's also like friendship bracelets."

"Friendship is the core of every good romantic relationship, is it not?"

Massie licks her lips, digging her teeth into her bottom one. When she releases it, there is a slight burn in the flesh, but she ignores it to say, "I'm pretty good at making friendship bracelets."

"He's got more rope in there." Sage points to the closet.

"Is there red?"

"I'm pretty sure he dyed this himself," Sage murmurs, bringing it up to her eye for closer inspection. She nods. "There wouldn't be any time now if you were planning on, I don't know, doing some arts and crafts, but if you left it… I'm not going to the festivities today, so you know, I'm gonna stay with Dune and keep an eye on his face…"

Massie pulls thin strands of rope out from behind what looks like a pile of colorful linen pants and gets to work. Her fingers are quick and nimble, easily braiding to life an intricate design. It's nothing like Derrick's, but it'll do. It'll have to.

"How did you know this was here?" she asks. The rope burns the skin of her index finger. "Did he tell you?"

"No," says Sage, "I steal his flannel shirts. Don't tell him."

…

While she still feels like complete shit, Massie leaves Victors' Island without the overwhelming urge to vomit. The swelling in her face, specifically around her eyes, has gone down, and her skin is back to being fresh and dewy.

Cam takes her hand in his, doesn't mention the rope burns along the pads of her fingertips or the top of her palm, and says, "He's not coming."

"I know," Massie answers.

"You know?" Josh asks, because apparently he is. "How?"

She sighs, dipping her free hand into the water beside them, the coolness calming her racing heart. "I just do," she tells him. That's all there is to it. "It's for the best, I think."

Cam massages his thumb into her skin. He understands, probably. He'll always understand the most. Massie flicks her gaze from the ocean to Josh, who is squinting at the main shore as it gets closer, and leans her head against Cam's shoulder. She wonders if he's ever had Josh used against him. Wonders if that's why he's kept him at as much of a distance as he could bear. Wonders why he chose _now_ to finally be honest with him about his feelings.

…

The reception in Four is the best one yet—not like many of them have been horrible, except for, you know, Ten, and Five, no matter what Dylan Marvil says. The mayor brings his tiny daughter with her, who asks her a million questions and has her hair braided down her back the same way Massie did all those months ago. She tells her her mother won't let her dye it to match hers and Massie tugs lightly on the sunkissed red waves and agrees. _Your hair is much prettier_ , she tells tiny Abigail, no more than, like, seven, and finds the girl's hand in hers the entire time she's shown around the district.

It's nice, having someone to ground her after all that's been thrown at her in the past three hours, even if it is a very short someone who only knows Massie as the pretty girl that won the Hunger Games with Derrick.

"Moooooommy!" Abigail shouts. "Can I take Massie to my favorite place?"

Mayor Carlisle shoots her daughter an exasperated look, the question interrupting an interesting explanation of the creation of Four's various zones and neighborhoods. Each is responsible for a different task in obtaining and preparing the seafood sent to the Capitol. Somewhere in this large place, children are learning to wield tridents and knot nets so they can catch fish. _So they can be deadly in the Hunger Games_.

Abigail widens her eyes, pouting her bottom lip, and waits for her mom to crack. She does.

"Yes, fine. I have something to talk to Cam about anyway." The deliberate set of her jaw makes Massie wonder how deep the rebellion runs in this district. It's obvious that's what she wants to talk to Cam about, she thinks, and since she has him _and_ Derrick here… and maybe Dune, too, for what happened to his sister…

Massie is pulled away before she can open her mouth, because she has something important to say, and Abigail is leading her _away_ , much farther than she anticipated. If she wasn't seven and clearly very gentle, Massie'd have thought she was leading her to her death.

She takes her to this hidden place, through colorful branches and green, green foliage, and what Massie sees is—it's breathtaking, the way the clouds move across the sky, reflected into this crystal clear, blue blue _blue_ water. She peers into it, can see the bottom, the tiny fishes, the aquatic plants…

Something sparkles at the bottom.

Massie gasps when Abigail throws herself in, diving low. Should she stop her? But the girl is back up in a flash, fisting the sparkly thing.

"What is that?" Massie asks.

"Sea glass," Abigail answers. "Look." She holds out her hand, and a shard of yellow glitters back up at them. "This is a pretty rare color, I think." She smiles. "You should keep it!"

"I don't…" Massie starts to deny, but Abigail presses it into her palm with a, "You don't have any sea glass. I have a lot."

An uncomfortable warmth fills Massie's heart, her body, as she closes her fingers around the gift. Abigail goes back to playing in the water, splashing and jumping and swimming, pulling out other interesting things she sees. Shells, coral, more glass.

Massie watches her, wondering what it's like to be that free, that at ease, and asks, "How'd you find this place?"

Abigail tucks hair behind her ear, a chunk fallen out of her braid, and answers, "My best friend was Chase Harrington. He showed me it. I think Derrick and his brother used to play here when they were little-little."

"Oh," Massie croaks. She looks away as quickly as she can, but can't find anything to focus on that dispels the newspaper headline that stamps itself across her line of sight. Yet another thing she and Derrick haven't discussed—the part she played in his family's most recent deaths, news shown to her and her alone before it even happened.

Did it hurt? When the hurricane destroyed the entire village Patrick Harrington moved to? Did this Chase boy, the one friends with this little girl who is handing her shells and sea glass and smooth rocks to take home, suffer when they killed him? Did he know—did they _all_ know—that the reason their house collapsed, or their rooms were flooded, or pieces of fountain and structure and window fell and speared and _cut them_ —did they know it was because of her? Because of Derrick?

Massie doesn't care about her skirt anymore, drops to her bottom, and digs her fingers into the sand. She feels it all beneath her nails, sharp and painful, but nothing is as bad as imagining these boys dying in whatever awful and inhuman way they died. She sees it over and over, creating faces she's never seen, some of them so identical to Derrick's it makes her flinch.

Interesting how the Capitol knew where this family was and Derrick did not, their location hidden from him for—for what?—their protection? They died anyway.

Abigail is so unaware of Massie's inner turmoil, so young, that when she turns to her, hair plastered to the back of her neck, cute little dress soaked with seawater, she chirps, "Can I add these to your braid?"

"Sure," Massie says vacantly.

When she is done, Abigail hugs her arms around Massie's shoulders. Her hair is now knotted by Sage and decorated in yellows and purples by Abigail and if they didn't know any better, they'd probably think Massie was a local.

But she's not, she's just some girl who is having a hard time breathing now, putting too much faith in a seven year old with her cheek pressed to the back of her head.

…

When it's over, when she's said what she needed to say and mingled with people who seemed genuinely interested in her, Massie trudges over to the beach. There are many of them here, and she's not even sure she's at the right one, but it's closest to the town square, where the barbeque buffet had been laid out.

Stars twinkle above her head, and the water stretches out for miles, a deep, dark, daunting blue. The surface ripples.

She stands there, shoes discarded somewhere behind her, and lets the smells and sounds and overall atmosphere of the beach wash over her. That dark water does not look so dark lapping at her feet, pulling and falling back, making her sink sink sink.

The breeze cools down the heat just a bit. She can already feel the salt clinging to her hair and her skin even though she just got here. It is just as relaxing as she thought it would be. Given everything that happened today—that happened in her whole life—just watching the waves and feeling the sand beneath her feet… that's enough to calm her down, even a little bit.

She can hardly believe all the things that happened today. Can hardly believe all of that managed to happen in _one day_.

She's tired, if she's honest. So, so tired—of the traveling, and the inside of her train, and the interacting with people she doesn't know, and the secrets. She's so, so, so, so, _so_ sick of the secrets. Of finding out things after the fact, of being in the dark, of being excluded, and people not telling her things because… because she's deemed untrustworthy? She doesn't know.

Maybe she is. She's sometimes flighty and flaky, and she can't keep anything to herself anymore, and she sometimes gets so overwhelmed she has to take _literal_ naps—

"I'm surprised you're here," Derrick's voice comes from her right. She knows it's him and knows he's there even without looking. She felt him approach, knew where he was in comparison to her the entire time it took him to walk down the beach to her.

"You said you wanted me to be here at this time, to see the ocean or something." She purposely sounds vague, like she doesn't remember the exact words he used, but she does, right down to the scribbled out compliment he'd paid her. She remembers it all. "Shouldn't _I_ be the one that's surprised, after what happened earlier? After you just… _abandoned_ me today?"

"You did fine without me," he replies, and that's true, but not what he should be saying. "And you had Josh."

Massie snorts. "Right. Josh, who hates me."

"He doesn't _hate_ —"

She turns her head to… to not _glare_ at him, per se, but close enough. Stare pointedly? Stare in annoyance? Whatever it is, she does it, and she adds, "Josh, who probably wanted to spend more time with _Cam_ than he did me."

Derrick closes his mouth at that. He knows she's right.

"I'm sorry," he says after a long moment. "I should have been there for you."

 _No, you shouldn't_ , she thinks, because he's literally just come back from close to a two month stint receiving his own brand of torture. But that's not what she tells him. She tells him, "I was fine, like you said. People are nice here."

"They like you." Derrick seems happy to tell her this, pleased with the citizens of his district. "Unlike other places, they aren't really afraid of the Victors. They understand what happened isn't really who you are and it was expected of you."

Massie quirks a brow. "That's because you're a Career district," she notes. "I'm from one, too; I know they aren't afraid of me. Not like the people in Eleven and Six and Nine are."

"It's not just that. It's… they _like_ you." He wets his lips and Massie takes the time he does to formulate a better response to get a good look at him. He is disheveled and pink-cheeked in the sense that he rushed, not that he's nervous or embarrassed. A small part of her wishes he was nervous. Nervous that she actually was mad at him (because she's not, of course she's not). Mainly she looks at the green pants he's wearing, cuffed at the ankle, and the white shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, left completely unbuttoned—

With a clear of her throat, she realizes she's missed half of what he said, and brings her gaze up, locking on his eyes. They speak volumes, the way they shine and bore into her, and it's so uncomfortable seeing everything he can't say written in the color there, in the green they've ringed around the brown again, that Massie has to look away. She swallows the lump in her throat.

She can _feel_ Derrick's disappointment. Can somehow tell, even staring straight ahead, that her lack of response has affected him. His sharp inhale of a sigh sounds like a sob in her ear.

She looks back quickly just to check that he's not actually crying. He isn't.

Her attention returns to the crashing waves in the distance, but he's already seen her resolve waver. Has already seen her glance at him.

" _Massie_ ," he tries.

She grits her teeth.

"Massie." Derrick tentatively steps closer. He ghosts his finger along the back of her hand, and when she doesn't pull away at his touch, he takes it. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I'm an asshole. Do you hate me?"

"What?" she blurts. "No. Why would you—I hate the situation you were put in. Not you. I hate every decision I ever made that brought us here in the first place."

"I don't," says Derrick, "because if we didn't make those decisions we wouldn't be here."

She blinks at him. "That's kind of the point."

"I don't want to live in a world without you," he says, her words repeated back at her. "We couldn't have expected the bad things to end in the arena, could we?"

"I did," Massie mumbles. Such naïveté. She is so stupid. She wriggles her hand out of his, rubs her thumb into the chafed skin, angry and red and bloody, around his wrists. She'd noticed it earlier that day, but hadn't wanted to know anything about it. "Did my… were they really the ones who did this to you?"

She can't even say the names. Can't force it out into the world. And she really thought… she'd _thought…_

"Your—yes," he answers. "They facilitated it."

"But _why_?"

"Because neither of them like our relationship?" Derrick suggests. "Neither of them like that we both won?"

Massie shakes her head. "My father… he wouldn't… he's not like—" The words get caught in her mouth, hard for them to escape.

That's not who he is, she knows that. He wasn't like Cam, no, but he saved the letters and helped prepare her for Myner, and he talked to Cam about important things, and dream-Kendra told her he was doing all he could in his own way, and—oh my god, her father never once implied that he was on her side, did he?

"Calm, Massie," Derrick whispers. "Breathe in and breathe out. Slow. Just like that."

She follows his instructions, willing her racing heart and shaking hands and thin breaths to stop. He's wrong. He has to be. William would never. He's not that type of person. He can't be. He's her _father_ , not that that means much of anything anymore, but it means something to her.

He can't have told her things and made her feel comfortable in confiding in him just to turn around and betray her—

"I could be wrong," Derrick says quickly. "But… but you did say Myner told you your family chose to mess with your mind, didn't you? Your dad would've been the one to make that decision."

Massie swallows. "But did you _see_ him? Did he—was he _there_?"

"Not that I know of," Derrick answers. "Just Myner the first couple of times and then—you, over and over, but with all of these significant differences." He pulls at his lower lip with his fingers. "Some of them were too nice, and others were too mean, and this one girl was too needy, and… and…" He replaces his hand with his teeth and sucks on the flesh he'd been playing with. "The week before Josh got me out, they were so fucking convincing, but there was always _one_ thing that wasn't you."

"He must've heard us, then," Massie mumbles, cogs whirling in her brain, searching, finding, deducing. "You said… you said there would never be another time when it is not me you're with… so they made that happen." She coughs. "They were all me."

"In a world full of Massies, you are the only one for me," he announces dramatically. It's a cover up because he looks rather perturbed by her declaration.

And Massie is too busy thinking about this—in a very clinical manner as to not upset herself—that she doesn't notice. Instead she blurts, "You said yourself you almost didn't know the difference on seven separate occasions."

"She said my name the same way you do," is Derrick's only defense.

Massie blinks. "What?"

"You're the only one who pronounces my name like… like… that," Derrick explains, "and I've been around a lot of people who like to say my name."

"Impossible. Everyone from One sounds the same."

"No, not you." He stares at her mouth like it holds all the answers. "You roll the _rs_ and the way your accent sounds—I can't be convinced that's actually my name."

"Derrick," she tests out, and his cheeks turn pink.

"Did you always react like this?"

He shrugs and says, "No."

"Then why—?"

"It was how I figured out most of them weren't you, once I realized. I hate how the people in the Capitol say it. You ever notice how they manage to make everything sound mechanical and flowery at the same time?"

"No, I've never…" She frowns.

Derrick flicks his gaze from her mouth to something behind her and back. "When I figured it out, I started getting this reaction to it, that like…" He cuts off, frustrated. "And you said my name earlier and it made me remember even more and it made me feel _worse_ , how I couldn't—how people were touching me and I was touching them and it wasn't you… and all those people, all those girls, they said my name more times than you did and they said it… they said it _wrong—_ "

It feels like someone's punched her right in the gut. All of the air has escaped her, and she's choking, probably, and for the first time in maybe _ever_ she's watching _Derrick_ fall apart in front of _her_.

And to think she'd been mad.

Well, maybe not _mad_ , but she was annoyed. Annoyed that she'd lost time with him, time that she _had_ to spend with him, because it wasn't like any other Victor was going to show her Four.

She reaches out to touch him and he flinches away.

Her hand curls the air pathetically. She feels like she's been hit again, her heart slamming against her chest in agony. He's never moved away from her. Not even when she strangled him.

Massie wets her lips and wishes she could start this day over.

She wishes she never had to see him like this. Wishes she doesn't have to stand here.

"Sorry," he says, and he ducks his head again.

"The only person that should be apologizing is our president," Massie replies fiercely. The words surprise her as they are all but ripped from her. "The fact that he even thinks he has ownership of your body—that… that he can control everyone in whatever way he wants, that he can just _go into my mind_ and _change_ things… that's not right. How would he feel if we did that to him?"

"That's the most rebellious thing I've ever heard you say," Derrick remarks, eyes blazing even as his hands still tremble.

Massie flicks her braid over her shoulder. A flower petal falls to her feet. "I was willing to sit by and let it all happen. I was too scared of what could happen to me if I participated. I thought if I was good he'd give me things I wanted."

"What changed?" Derrick asks, because something has. He can sense it.

"I was never very good with taking instructions," Massie says loftily, "and he sent Kemp my father's axe to kill me with."

Derrick blinks. "What?"

"You were right. He's mad we both won," Massie explains. "He's mad _I_ won."

"I thought he liked you before all of this happened."

"I don't think so." Massie eyes the distance between them and takes a tiny, tentative step forward. Derrick watches her do it, doesn't move. "He could've made this point with anyone, couldn't he? He chose me, and through that, he chose you. The president can't bet on anyone. He's not allowed. But he bet on Kemp. He sent him the axe that made my dad famous. He didn't like that I killed Kemp. I probably cost him a lot of money."

"Probably."

"He played with my mind and then made me watch my real Games over and over until I cracked, but I already had cracked prior to that. Your letters—they did that."

And now that she thinks about it, Myner never asked her about them. Not once. Had that even been part of his plan? Had her father and Cam just make that up so she'd comply?

She doesn't realize she's squeezing Derrick's wrist until he's shaking her off. She's afraid he's going to reject her again, but he merely slips his fingers between hers and lets their arms hang loosely at their sides.

"My dad may be complicit in whatever is happening to us," she says, "but he's not the one _doing it._ And that doesn't make it right, but—he's helping us. In his own way."

Derrick doesn't respond, clenching his jaw.

" _He_ saved the letters. _He_ made me read them even when I didn't want to. _He_ was going to help me regardless of who I turned out to be—"

"And how has he been helping me?" Derrick asks. It takes all his power to keep the edge from his voice. "Because it sounds like he's only helped you."

"He knows things," Massie stresses. "He's told Cam important things, he must—he must be on our side, why else would he fight for me?"

"Our," Derrick tests, like he's never heard the word before. "Our side?" He looks at her again, calculating. "And what side is that?"

"This one," Massie answers. "Whatever side you're on. Wherever I can be with you and not have to worry that… that…" She can't decipher Derrick's expression; for once it is closed off to her, and she peers into his face, trying to find him. He looks back at her easily, but she can tell he's mad—or as mad as he allows himself to get at her.

"I want to be on whatever side lets me love you," Massie finishes, because nothing else suffices.

Derrick blinks, breathes, and blinks again. His anger dissolves when he looks at her again, and he brings his hands up to palm her cheeks. "You've really changed your mind?"

She finds herself tongue-tied, but manages, "He tried to use me against you. He murdered your family because of _me_. I can't let that happen again."

"He did some pretty awful things to you, too," Derrick replies. "Don't make your reasoning all about me."

A smile plays at her mouth, and she presses her feet into the sand, standing on her tiptoes. Her nose brushes his. "Everything's been about you," she tells him. "Don't you remember the arena? Wherever you go, I go. They took that away from me for a little, but I remember it now."

His face goes pink again. "None of the other girls ever said things like _that_ to me," Derrick whispers.

"Clearly they weren't trained well enough," Massie decides, haughtily.

He laughs, moves his mouth closer to hers, says, "I'm in love with you."

"I hope you never said that to the other girls," Massie quips, something warm and gentle and fond blossoming in her heart, which hammers wildly inside her. She knows this already—that he feels that way about her, that he's never said it to anyone else, regardless of their appearance—but it's nice to hear it, a simple reassurance.

Derrick mumbles something in the old language of Four; Massie's heard it around here a bit, phrases and words she's not accustomed to. It sounds amusedly annoyed, whatever it is he says.

He is insistently pressed against her: knees, hips, lips, and it is the hint of a kiss that makes her answer back, "I'm in love with you too."

"Mi corazón." He buries his fingers in the braid at the nape of her neck, Abigail's aquatic flowers crushed beneath him, and closes the gap between them.

"What does that mean," she breathes against him as he pulls away.

"My heart," he murmurs, his forehead against hers. "Mi amor. My love."


	13. Part Thirteen: Alternative

**_I am the worst. This has just been sitting here, all done, and I just haven't gotten around to posting it. Editing this is proving that there are more than 15 parts, so now I'm aiming for 20 and I refuse to make it any longer, but, you know, things happen, I guess. I made this ALL up about District Three, so don't really ask me questions about it lol I have no idea what they really do there, but I figured it'd be cool to have them be like this._**

 ** _Anyway, hope this doesn't suck too much and that none of it really completely blind sides anybody. Lemme know~_**

 ** _(Also if I'm ever MIA again, please know it's because I am getting my butt kicked at the gym. Because I joined a gym. And have my friend making workout plans for me. So. Yeah. Feel bad for me, I'm in so much pain.)_**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Thirteen_

* * *

 **alternative |** al·ter·na·tive  
adjective  
 _(of one or more things) available as another possibility  
_ synonyms: different, other, another, second, substitute, replacement

* * *

District Three is where all the tech lives. People who grow up here go on to create some of the greatest and most complex gadgets the world has ever seen. Unfortunately all of that brilliance goes straight to the Capitol in the form of cameras, mutts, and computers, which means the people of Three have a very interesting, very _complicated_ relationship with the Hunger Games. They know how it works, they know everything is not as it seems, and they know how the blackouts and the twists and the weather changes come to pass; _they've made them_.

Because of this, the reaction to Massie here is—it's _different_ , to put it lightly.

They seem to think they know her here, and they might, but as always, there are two sides, just like there are two sides to her. Two personalities fighting for dominance, fighting her.

It's like they know that, too.

Spring is ending, making way for weather that will rival that of Four's year-long climate. The heat teases Massie here, but there is a breeze that juxtaposes it, making her outfit choice a little bit daunting this morning. And she feels ridiculous having worried about this—her floral dress and loose white sweater—when she's got this... this...

She doesn't know what to call it.

It's not really a riot, but—

It's definitely not pleasant.

They stand beneath her in militaristic lines, shoulder to shoulder, arms strong and necks aching, eyes a variety of colors that share one similarity. They are tired. They are dead inside. Some of them, though—

Some of them spark to life as they look at her.

Massie gives the speech without thinking about it. The words escape her lips like they're nothing, and they are nothing because she hardly believes them, hardly notices them. It's a chore at this point, groveling for the Capitol, acting like she _cares_ about all the things they've done for her (all the _terrible_ things). She thanks Three for their hospitality, and that is genuine, at least, and she talks about their tributes, whom of which she didn't know, and she—

And she is called a _Capitol darling._

They call Cam that. They call Derrick that. They call people who do everything the Capitol says that. They call her _dad_ that. Behind his back, of course.

Her blood runs cold at the thought that she, too, is considered one. Maybe in a different life. Maybe if she hadn't entered that arena with both Kemp and Derrick at her back. Maybe if she hadn't been born Massie Block.

Her training demands she ignore this. It demands she swiftly change the subject. Gather the attention back.

It never tells her what to do when someone else shouts, "Shut _up_ , you know that's not true!"

Or when someone adds, "They _made_ her into this!"

Or when there is: "William Block's _daughter_! The _Beheader_!"

They are all yelling over each other, tightly controlled in their lines. The Peacekeepers don't even know what to do, who to apprehend. It's not like there is a fight happening, just a cacophony of voices, one shouting over the other.

But it's not like freedom of speech is necessarily allowed…

And then someone says, "They made him, too, don't forget that."

It echoes, like it's been picked up by the microphones all around the square, set off seconds after each other.

 _They made him_

 _They made him, too_

 _They made him, too, don't forget_

 _They made him, too, don't forget that_

It is _that_ , the insinuation that her father is not truly who he makes himself out to be, that has the guards sprinting into action. Like that _means_ something. Like they're doing a dishonor to him, to her, to everyone in the Capitol by telling the truth.

One of them lifts the butt of their gun and slams it into the back of one of the louder citizens. He sprawls to the ground, landing on his knees and disrupting the order of the square.

With him on the ground and another person getting whacked across the face—Massie sees the spray of blood—the disarray grows.

Elbows are thrown. Fists crush. Feet slam into backs.

All around her, District Three fights back. Fights _each other_. Fights the Capitol.

They fight back, and the cameras take it all in, panning from her to the square and back. There are so many of them—so many angles to capture Massie standing there like an idiot, watching it all happen, not saying anything, _not doing anything._

Massie Block: Capitol darling.

She's not, but is she?

What would a normal person do right now?

What would Derrick do? Did this happen to him? She conveniently missed his Tour.

What would Josh do? Todd? _Alicia_?

What would Cam—?

"Not now," her brother hisses in her ear. His hand wraps around her wrist before she can think, before she can blink. He pulls her back, away from the front, where her mind was subconsciously headed. "Let them… we need to let it happen."

"What? _Let it_ … I thought the point was—" She breaks off, horrified. "They're going to _kill them_ —"

"They know," Cam whispers. He positions himself so it looks like he's protecting her from these people, but they're not… they aren't…

This one kid, he can't be older than fifteen, scrambles up the side of the stage. Massie flinches as he gets closer. Close enough that she could reach out and touch him. Close enough that she can count the freckles on his nose, can see the white of the healed scar on his cheekbone. Close enough that she hears him whisper, "Duck," just before he winks.

One second his eyes are blue.

The next his eyes are dead.

Cam covers Massie's body with his own as she screams.

Beside them, this teenager, this _child_ , collapses to the ground. The ghost of his smile plays at his mouth, and red, red, red blood leaks from a wound in his forehead. It pools around Massie's espadrilles, a terrible choice in footwear.

They don't teach you how to fight with guns when you prepare for the arena. Guns take the fun out of everything. Guns kill instantaneously. Guns make it easy.

It takes everything Massie has not to vomit right then and there.

It takes _everything_ , but when Cam murmurs, "They're with us," into the shell of her ear, her lunch comes back up. It covers them both.

The cameras decide to cut off there.

 **…**

The death toll: 24

The injured: 47

The traumatized: 1

 **…**

Massie is numb when she pulls herself out of her head.

She wants to retreat right back into it when she remembers what happened. Wants to go back to that safe little place she escapes to, where she never volunteered for the Games and she met Derrick accidentally and Kemp has always been her best friend and number one supporter. There, she'd been wrapping a birthday present because there she knew Derrick's birthday was coming up.

Here, she's sitting stock still in the middle of what looks like an _operation._

Here, she realizes she has no idea when Derrick's birthday even _is_ , much less how old he's turning.

Here, Massie is seated around a table, blanket over her shoulders, watching as television screens flicker with images of other districts. Watching as footage of the colossal mess she was a part of replays over and over. Watches as a tall, lanky boy with a riot of dirty blonde curls snarls at someone else, a bigger, broader guy, who holds him back.

The only person she knows here is Kristen Gregory, and Kristen is a lot different in this place than she was in the Capitol, drunk off wine.

She's alert. She's aware. She's commanding.

She's got a deadly look in her eye, and it is one she deserves to have. Not many can boast a death count like she can. Not many have the skill.

"They're monitoring all the calls," she snaps at the too-tall boy. "You'll never be able to get through."

He doesn't care, this kid. His eyes blaze behind his glasses. "They're—there's a revolt _everywhere_ ," he retorts. "I need to… I have to make sure she's _okay_. My brother just played martyr—I don't need to lose her, too. _I can't._ " He swallows, rough and angry and sad. "I can't lose them both."

The bigger one, the guy who looks like he's two seconds away from entering a wrestling rink, points at the screens all around them. "It's fine in Two," he tells him as gently as the rumble in his voice allows. "Two is the most loyal to the Capitol. They'd never."

And it's true. From what Massie sees, everyone is going about their business. They scoff at the replay of her stop in Three. They say a few things about the district here, about Massie herself, about this whole thing. But they don't seem like they're going to join whatever is happening—and whatever it is, it's happening just about everywhere else.

The only person who looks remotely interested, and even _that_ is pushing it, is Alicia Rivera.

She's indifferent. She's passive. The only sign she's affected is the slight sparkle in her eye and even that can be described as annoyance.

But this boy freaks anyway.

Massie watches him idly, the way he clamors against Kristen, the way he reaches for a phone, the way he aches for it.

Alicia looks fine, though, if that's who he's concerned about.

And he is.

"I can reroute it!" he snaps. "I can _confuse_ them! I'm the smartest person in this _room_!"

"Watch it," Kristen hisses, squeezing his bicep a touch too hard. She leaves bright red fingerprints against pale skin, the half-moons of her nails digging deep.

He slaps at her, uncaring. " _I am_ ," he snarls, "and I _will_ call her—" His gaze is wild as he searches the room, crazed as it lands on Massie, who can only stare back, wide-eyed and kind of frightened. "You must agree, Massie, don't you? Aren't you worried about Derrick? About what's happened to him? They _killed_ Yuri and he's one of us!"

"Don't listen to him, Massie, he's a manipulator," the big kid, the dark one, says instantly, appearing at his side. "Yuri is dead because he _laughed_ , Plov. He _laughed_ and he _mocked_ them. That's why he's dead."

Massie's heart pounds in her chest. It pounds and pounds and pounds and it hurts. It tries to break free of her rib cage, tries to fly away and flee. She stares between Plov and the other boy, between the screens and Kristen, and she feels every part of her disintegrate. She's cold in her dress, even though it's humid in this windowless room.

She doesn't understand anything they're saying. Doesn't know who Yuri is to them, why Plov is frantic over Alicia, who seems fine, why they are all monitoring screens of each district. But she does understand the fear that crippled her when Derrick's name was mentioned. If this other boy is so nervous over Alicia surely Massie should worry about Derrick…

But _why_ should she worry about Derrick?

" _Please_ ," Plov begs. " _Please._ " His voice catches but Massie isn't sure if it's in desperation or fear. "I need to know. They won't even know I'm calling. I can make them not see it. I need to check on her. And Massie needs to check on Derrick. My brother is dead. _My brother is dead._ "

"YOUR BROTHER SIGNED UP FOR THIS!" someone else roars. It's a sound that shakes the very foundation of this establishment.

Massie pulls her blanket tighter against her and _shivers_ when the owner of that voice, that rough and angry and commanding voice, enters the room.

He's tall. He's broad. He's got muscle on muscle _on muscle_. He's got dark hair that's cropped to his head. He has a black eyepatch over the left side of his face.

"Don't play that game with any of us, Sweet Talker," he hisses, no sign of amiability in his tone.

He is Chris Abeley, the winner of the Seventieth Annual Hunger Games. He's never looked like he's belonged in Three, built like a fucking god of war, and because of that he was their first, and only, volunteer.

From what Massie recalls, he was vicious. He _is_ vicious, glaring at Plov like he's a nuisance, like he's weak, but Plov seems used to this. He doesn't seem perturbed in the slightest, and he levels a glare back, his cheeks flushed.

And Plov—Plov _is_ the smartest person in this room. Smart and good with words, hence the nickname.

Hidden behind thick-framed glasses, he doesn't look like much, and Massie's rattled brain had taken much too long—her reflexes are shit when she's nervous now apparently—to place him. Christopher Plovert, another Victor, from nine years ago. The year before Cam. While he's not as cunning or ruthless as Kristen, he's quick and wicked and he can get anyone to do anything he says.

Which is why it's so odd no one will let him near a phone.

Which is why he's got Massie's stomach in knots.

"Besides," Chris Abeley rumbles, calmer, "she's fine, isn't she? Look."

Plovert grinds his teeth. "That's from hours ago. Who knows what… _look_! They pulled her away. _Why_?"

Hours? It's been _hours_?

Massie bites her lower lip, searches.

Cam is squinting at the television dedicated to Four. He is too far away. Massie wants him next to her.

"There is a small faction of rebellious figures in Two," Abeley comments. "She plays her part perfectly. Even those people don't know she's with us and there's a chance they may… well, you know. It's for her own protection, I imagine."

Plovert drags his gaze from Abeley's one blue eye, running a hand over the light stubble on his jaw. He looks to the screens again, watches Alicia being escorted away, and growls, "I hate this shit."

Massie follows their interaction like she's watching some sort of tennis match, confused as ever. She feels too warm for her own good, but too cold to drop the blanket. Her head hurts. Her mind is aflutter. Where is she? How did she get here?

The last time she'd been this confused, this lost… she'd been tied to a hospital bed in the Capitol, being force fed lies she believed for months.

Her mouth moves on her own accord, and her voice sounds small and tinny. "I don't think I follow."

Plovert's calculating stare appraises her, searching for weakness to latch on to.

Abeley, on the other hand, merely drawls, "I imagine you wouldn't."

"We're underground," Kristen supplies, like that helps.

Cam says, "Four is fine. Just like expected."

She doesn't like the way they are all taking to her, as if she's a child who doesn't need all the information to continue with her life, and licks her lips.

"But what _is_ this place?" Massie asks.

It's underground, yes, and it has an entire wall dedicated to screens. It's there that the districts flicker, cameras pointed at the squares and other notable places. It's like there is total surveillance here—of Justice Buildings and town squares and the homes of mayors and district superintendents. There's even a section dedicated to important figures in the Capitol. Massie can see her father, lounging in that imperious way of his, in Myner's drawing room. It looks like the two of them are sharing a drink, but the president is nowhere to be seen.

"This, Massie Block," Abeley announces, authority etched in every line of his face, "is the home of the rebellion."

 **…**

She doesn't slap anyone this time, at least, but she does frown so deeply Abeley, the prick, tells her she's going to wrinkle prematurely.

 **…**

They're seated around a table, all of these people and Massie. A pitcher of water sits in the middle and each place setting has a cup and saucer ready for tea. It's the most formal, the most proper set up she's ever seen for a rebellion.

But it's not like she's been part of many rebellions before to compare it to.

She sniffs at the tea they've poured into her mug. It's lavender mixed with a bit of honey, definitely meant to relax. She doesn't trust it.

Doesn't trust the word "rebellion" either, which she dislikes about herself, because she's, like—she's _part_ of it. It's just… the word is so _cold._ So… _sharp._

She nibbles on the cookie, though. That seems safe.

And she saw Plovert eat three already.

Abeley makes the middle of the table his home, big and looming and taking up _so much space_ in both mentality and physicality. He hasn't touched any of his food, doesn't even have a teacup. He's tapping his fingers against a stack of folders.

Either Massie shifts just enough to see or he deliberately lets her. It's a collection of Victors, it seems. Regulation Capitol materials—the paperwork the tributes fill out, then have medical experts finish up. Stats. Idle notes on behaviors. Personality traits. Physical assets.

Massie's, the one from last year, is flipped open. At sixteen years old with the world ahead of her (or a much certain death), that girl looks so different from who she sees in the mirror now.

There's a red _X_ over her face.

Then a blue question mark.

Then a green circle, deep like the person penning it applied too much pressure, around the whole thing. Three separate times. Three different circles.

The same color gives way to boxy handwriting that reads _liability._

 _Dangerous?_

 _Interference._

 _Powerful will._

 _Alliance?_

 _Undetermined._

That last word is underlined like it's important.

Massie munches on her cookie, stares at these words that somehow define her—words always define her—and then asks, very brazenly, "What's that, then?"

A shock, given that she's a teensy bit intimidated by Abeley. It's a wonder her voice doesn't shake. Maybe that girl in the picture is still in her.

Even more surprisingly, Abeley answers without evasion. "A collection of Victors. We use it to weed out those who will not help with the cause." He presses his finger to her face. "You were a tough one to crack."

Massie gestures to _undetermined._ "Looks like I still am."

He raises a brow. "Are you?"

"I can be," she says honestly, "if it has anything to do with what Angela wants from me."

Abeley snarls. Plovert scowls. Kristen sips noisily at her tea, so that's probably not poisoned, and the other kid, the big, dark one, mutters something unsavory under his breath. Only Cam remains silent and still, like he hasn't got an opinion when she _knows_ he does.

There is a beat as they digest this. A beat as _Massie_ digests this. She hadn't known she was going to say that. She knew it was how she felt—it was one of the reasons she didn't want to join up after that blasted meeting in the first place—but to say it out loud, and to say it out loud in front of strangers—

"It's a good thing we don't do things Angela's way then," Abeley replies, the first to recover.

"She wanted me to be crazy," Massie blurts. Her fingers brush a pattern through the crumbs on her plate. "She said it would ' _help_ '."

"You are not crazy," says Abeley. "There is no need for you to play that part."

Having Chris Abeley—who had his eye ripped out of its socket by a bloodthirsty tribute and was whacked so hard in the back of the head he saw things for two days straight until someone pitied him enough to send help—tell her this…

He may only have one eye, but he sees her, and that is not something she's used to.

 **…**

 _She knows everyone in this room._

 _She may not know them well, but she knows of them. There's Alicia, loud and unabashed, a stark of color in an otherwise bland room, taking up space right in the middle. Josh is cross-legged and imperious at the fireplace, hand wrapped around his ankle. Cam hovers behind him, leaning against the back of his armchair. Kristen is the only one sitting at the table, arms folded. Even Todd is there, scowling in the shadows, pressed against a bookshelf of hardcover titles._

 _Derrick lets go of Massie's hand and takes the seat next to Kristen. They share a smile, because he's been granted the opportunity to know these people on a level she never will, and Kristen grips his wrist once in greeting. Massie watches this exchange, feeling—not jealous, really, but out of place. She doesn't belong, but then again…_

 _She takes another look around._ Interesting.

 _Angela stands with her back to them, looking out a window. "Thank you for coming."_

" _You call, we answer, right?" Todd mutters. He waves a hand to Massie; she takes that as a welcome, meandering over to him._

 _She feels Derrick's gaze as she ignores the empty space beside him. He raises a brow, but doesn't question it. She's glad of that. How is she supposed to explain that she feels most comfortable here, on the outskirts, when it seems he's always been drawn to the center?_

 _Todd is ignored by Angela, who twists around and surveys the group. "It is not all of us," she continues, "but to call upon you all would make a scene. This will have to do."_

" _What is this?" Massie asks Todd, voice pitched low._

 _His remains normal, tinted in disdain. "A quick rebellion meeting, since she's gotten some of us in the same place."_

 _Massie blinks. And blinks again. And again._

 _A_ rebellion _meeting._

Rebellion.

 _Her skin crawls. No one seems to notice, not even Derrick, who has never taken his eyes off of her._

" _I have a few tasks for you all," Angela plows on. "With the attention both Derrick and Massie have created, I believe we can begin Stage Two."_

 _Todd, again, drawls, "And what was Stage One?"_

" _Enough," Angela snaps. "Do not make me punish you."_

 _Massie expects a witty comeback from him, but Todd retreats into himself, silent. She reaches out a hand and he flinches, bumping into the side of the bookcase. Whatever Angela said, whatever she means, it scares him._

 _She scratches the inside of her wrist._

" _Cam, continue with getting the train blueprints—"_

" _I'm not getting anywhere," Cam interrupts. "Is there anyone else I can speak to?"_

" _No," Angela says. "Just the Commissioner. Keep trying."_

 _Cam sets his jaw._

" _Derrick, keep creating connections with the people Myner sells you to." The outright awareness of his position in this world makes Massie's hackles rise. "I know it is unsavory, but make them like you for more than just what you do to them. People talk when they like you."_

 _He nods stiffly. Massie's hands ball up into fists._

 _Angela rattles off plans to Todd, who turns white, Kristen, Josh, and Alicia, but Massie is not listening. She doesn't like the way Angela is using them like this, the way she is making them continue whatever it is the Capitol is making them do. Is that the point of a rebellion? To have them keep up with the terrible things they're forced to do? Isn't a rebellion meant for the opposite?_

 _Isn't a rebellion meant to_ inspire _?_

 _Todd looks shaken; Cam looks defeated. Even Alicia, superior in all else, looks a bit annoyed. She missed what she is meant to do, but given her big eyes, curves for days, and sensual disposition, Massie knows it can't be good._

 _Worse is when Angela turns to_ her _. To Massie, like she is part of this, like she is a_ member _. And even more so—_ she gives Massie a task. _A task._

" _The world knows nothing about you, Massie," Angela says. "Nothing but what they saw during your Recap and the stunts you pulled today. We all know you spent hours vomiting"—Alicia looks confused here, like Angela_ shouldn't _know that—"and we all know you broke down in more ways than one back there. You tried to kill the Head Peacekeeper. You tried to kill Derrick. You are the most interesting person we have on our side. I'd like you to keep that up. I'd like you to embrace the crazy. Let them see that."_

 _Derrick starts._

 _Cam opens his mouth to argue._

 _Even Josh, an asshole, hisses, "_ What _?"_

 _Angela smiles serenely. "When you're crazy, people don't hide who they really are. They do not expect you to retain any of the information they leak. Massie, by continuing to…_ embrace _your_ oddities _—"_

" _No," Massie replies immediately._

" _Excuse me?"_

" _I said no," Massie repeats. "I am hardly part of this. Do not assign me a role, or a task, or whatever this is. I don't work for you. You haven't even explained yourself."_

" _And I have to?" Angela asks. "Do you need it spelled out for you, Baby Block?"_

" _Be nice," Todd warns._

" _Strike two," Angela coos at him. She turns her attention back to Massie, eyes boring into hers like a predator. Massie stares back, refusing to be shoved into a corner. "I will, if you need. This is the rebellion, Massie. This is where you want to be, right? Your president will not give you what you want, but I will."_

 _Massie blurts, "How?" before she can stop herself._

" _How?" Angela repeats._

" _Yes._ How? _What will all of these tasks accomplish? What will they do? How will they benefit us? What is your main objective?"_

 _Angela sighs, long and suffering. "I forgot you were a Career."_

" _So are they." Massie points to Alicia, Cam, Josh, and Derrick. The only non-Careers here are Kristen and Todd. Angela is surrounded by them._

" _But you are_ the _Career," the woman emphasizes. "Daughter to two of our most favored Victors—may Kendra rest in peace. They trained you well. You think of it all." She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She looks like a doll, mouth wide, expression dead. "But who would I be if I placed all of my eggs in one basket? You said it yourself: you are not one of us. Why would I tell you all my secrets?"_

" _Why would you tell me_ anything _?" Massie shoots back. "Why suggest a task if you are unsure of my alliances?"_

" _I am certain of one of your alliances," Angela rebuts. "And I believe you would hate for that alliance to be compromised." Her eyes flicker to Derrick._

 _Massie clenches her jaw. Says nothing. She is not wrong._

" _And you are crazy," Angela continues. "The arena messed with your mind and the Capitol emphasized your PTSD. You cannot handle normal, everyday situations. You cannot hold conversations. This one we're having right now? You think it's taken ten, maybe fifteen minutes, but we've been here for longer than that. It's like pulling teeth with you, and_ it. Is. Perfect. _"_

 _Alicia tuts and shakes her head like she doesn't agree._

 _Massie searches the room for a clock, trying to find the time, but realizes there are none here._

 _It takes a second, or maybe it takes several minutes, and then she is saying, "No." She is saying it over and over again, upset._

 _It is perfect that she is like this, that her mind is twisted. It is perfect that she wants to be close to Derrick, but also wants to kill him. It is perfect that she is nauseous right now and her head hurts and she doesn't know who she is. It is_ perfect _._

 _She is perfect. The perfect tribute. The perfect daughter. The perfect girl. The perfect crazy Victor because people are scared of her and people are intrigued by her and people want her and all of her insanity._

 _But no no no_ _ **no**_ _._

 _The words tangle on her tongue, her denial, her refusal. She does not want to be a pawn in this game. She does not want to make herself into something she hates just so she can—can_ what _? She still has no answers._

 _She never gets choices. Never gets to choose. She will allow herself to choose again, no matter how selfish her choices always seem to be._

" _No," she says again, loud loud loud._

" _I know it's hard," Angela replies. Her tone of voice is soft. It's concerned. It's like she's a mother trying to comfort a child, but Massie's mother is_ dead _, and she would never be forced into a situation like this by her mother. "But you must embrace it. You must let it become you. Fighting it is only harming you, and harming others._ You are crazy _, Massie Block. You are crazy and the rebellion will use it to their advantage. Come on, say it with me._ You. Are. Crazy."

" _SHE IS NOT," Derrick yells, words echoing and reverberating and making a whole mess of everything. If they were tridents, they'd pierce Angela until she was nothing but slabs of skin. "You are not helping by telling her she is everything she already fears she is!"_

" _Harrington, I swear—"_

" _She's_ afraid _," Derrick snaps, unbothered by the threat. His whole body vibrates with his anger, like his carefully contained glances and clenched jaw and rigid posture are sad attempts to keep it inside. "Can't you see that? She's afraid of herself and you're asking her to use that for you? She doesn't have to answer—"_

" _She has already," Cam cuts in. "She's said no. Respect it."_

" _And if you can't respect_ her _no," Derrick finishes, curling into a snarl, "respect_ mine _. No."_

 _It is like a tornado hit, the way the world changes with that one simple word. With_ his _one simple word, not hers._ His _, like she does not matter._

 _Angela looks between Cam and Derrick, face transforming into something Massie does not like. Something mean. Something horrid and ugly, like she is a creature out of a story parents tell their kids to keep them in line. "You do not want to do this again, Derrick Harrington."_

" _I do," Derrick retorts. "For her, I do."_

 **...**

Chris Abeley says, "You're just a product of a very bad, very thorough manipulation." He stares at her oddly, like he's dissecting her. He must make Cam nervous because her brother slides his hand into hers under the table. "The Capitol created you. _We_ create things for _them_. We can easily take you apart, right, Nate?"

Nate, who sits on Kristen's other side, nods. "I can take a look," he offers. "If you'd like."

Abeley says, as if Nate never spoke, "There are two sides to this rebellion, Massie. Which side are you on?"

That hardly registers, the sides, though she keeps it locked away for future use. All that echoes in her mind is _I can take a look_.

I can take a look.

What does that mean?

She says that out loud. She says, " _I can take a look._ What does that mean?"

Nate flushes deeply, cheeks more pink than red, and ducks his head. A long finger dips into his tea, steam still rising from the liquid, and stirs. He does not flinch or notice the heat.

" _Massie_ ," Abeley stresses, grabbing her attention again.

She looks from Nate to him, then slides her gaze towards Cam, practically a statue beside her. She can't get a read off him. Normally she can tell everything he's feeling.

He catches her eye, twists his lips into _something_ , and murmurs, "Your choice."

Massie swallows. Studies each face before her. Kristen, who is happily eating the refreshments someone ( _who?_ ) provided her, friendly and open with still a bit of cunning in the cut of her face. Plovert, gnawing at his lower lip, eyes glinting behind his glasses. Nate, broad shouldered and timid, face earnest and a bit bashful. Abeley, weathered and grizzly, missing an eye and somehow the leader of this ragtag group despite his young age. Twenty-two, Massie thinks, since he won his Games at eighteen. What makes him someone people want to follow?

"I don't understand," she tells them again.

Abeley sighs, annoyed.

Plovert pitches forward, accidentally knocking his tea over, not that he was drinking it, and squints at her. "She's telling the truth," he says aloud after a moment's scrutiny.

Massie blinks, even more confused. _Of course she's telling the truth._

"Kristen, you're friends with her, right?" Abeley throws out. "Take her around the gardens. Explain."

"I wouldn't say we're _friends_ ," Massie protests as Kristen says, "Yes," with such a resound finality Massie has to wonder if they actually _are_ friends.

They aren't.

Still, Kristen stands, looping her pinky through the handle of her tea cup and swinging it in circles that has all the manners and etiquette ingrained in Massie cringing. She looks to Massie, waiting, but the brunette remains seated, staring back up at her.

Why can't Abeley tell her what he means? Why does Kristen have to take her out of this room? How are there _gardens_ when they're _underground_?

Cam presses his elbow into her side. He doesn't bother lowering his voice; they're all paying attention. "It's so you can make an educated, unbiased decision." His hand slips to her knee, squeezes comfortingly. "Go with her."

Massie takes three cookies, sprinkled with cinnamon and filled with chunks of white chocolate, and follows. She believes Cam, trusts him without question, so this no longer seems daunting. Annoying, yes, but something to fear? No.

Kristen's long ponytail sways against her shoulders as Massie follows, steps slower and timid. Before they are gone entirely, before the door closes at her back, she hears Abeley ask, "Fish, is Josh still loyal to Angela?"

Cam's answer is soft and pained. "I'm trying."

"Evidently," Plovert coos, meaner than he'd been with Massie, more like the girl he's consciously concerned about, "not hard enough."

A hand grabs Massie's elbow. She breaks the cookie she's holding, large crumbs falling to the floor. Kristen's blue-eyed gaze is unassuming and easy to fall into. Safe. Knowing. "He'll be fine," she says. "They won't do anything to him."

Massie looks back, but the door is shut, and there is no window to look into. She bites her lip. "What's that about?"

"It's," Kristen starts, looking for the right word. She picks one four seconds later, when they are farther down the ball. "Complicated."

"Care to clarify?" Massie requests, more snap in her voice than earlier. She can work with someone like Kristen. She can't with Abeley, who is superiority personified, it seems.

Kristen doesn't, leading her up the stairs—

And more stairs—

And more stairs—

And more stairs—

She pushes open a door with her shoulder and immediately ducks, a flutter of wings and claws and beak soaring too close to her face. Massie jumps back, heart hammering in her chest, and loses another cookie.

She gazes at it forlornly and stuffs the last one in her mouth before that, too, is gone.

" _Brownie_!" Kristen calls after the majestic beast, fond and exasperated and laughing. "Be more careful next time!"

A neighing sound fills the air around them, a loud swoop, and then silence.

"I—" Massie stops at the threshold of this room, leaning forward to inspect from what she feels is a safer vantage point. "What was that? Are there more?"

Kristen is already in the garden, heading down a cobblestone path lined with too-green shrubbery and—is that a plant with _teeth_?

"Oh," Kristen says. Stops. Turns. Her smile is wide and infectious. "That was Brownie."

"I gathered," Massie retorts, "since that's what you called it."

"She's a horse-eagle hybrid," Kristen explains. "Completely harmless."

"A _horse-eagle hybrid_ ," Massie echoes, with just a _hint_ of hysteria. "A horse. And an eagle. A horse and an eagle _together_?"

Kristen grins widely and nods. "Together!"

Massie's tongue dries. Three is the place where things are _created_ , where advances are _made_ , where the Capitol forces workers to use their creativity and their brains to benefit them, to make _them_ better. She knows this. She knows this, and yet… a horse-eagle hybrid is fucking _terrifying._

Why is Two the powerhouse of the nation?

( _Blind loyalty_ , a voice whispers to her.)

"Uh, _why_?"

"We make the mutts here," Kristen says. "Not _here_ , but in Three. That's what the factories are for."

"You're allowed to keep them?" asks Massie. She doesn't see any more animals, or whatever those are, and steps forward, not too keen on yelling at Kristen. "And name them?"

"We… Plovert didn't make Brownie for the Capitol," explains Kristen. "Brownie was his horse. I mean, not _his_ horse, but _a_ horse. There are wild ones around the border, and he grew attached. Peacekeepers shot Brownie down when they noticed he was spending more time in the wilderness than in the factory." She presses her lips together. "He saved the horse's life by giving it that eagle body."

"But… _how_?"

Kristen taps Massie's temple, they're that close now. "The same way the doctors swapped your memories. It's all about the brain. And nerve endings." She smiles again. "And I like to think a little bit of magic."

Magic is, obviously, not real, though Massie understands the sentiment, but only when it comes to that horse. The rewiring of her brain? That was cruel and ruthless. Nothing hopeful about that.

"Oh," adds Kristen, "don't touch the plants. Most of them will bite."

Massie's hands fist the sleeves of her sweater.

They pass by flowers taller than she is, trees that leak blood instead of sap, bushes with tiny blades in the place of thorns. Something rustles amongst the deep purple of a shrub, leaves glistening with—not dew, but poison, if the smell is anything to go by. These are all bits of Hunger Games past, horrors that attacked tributes when they did not attack each other. A few years ago, that very thicket grew vines that strangled a girl from Eleven when she got too close. They made these here. Made the things that killed people like them, that may have killed their own. They're reminders.

"So," Kristen begins, just as Massie squats, hands still at her sides, firmly not touching, by a rainbow-colored floral arrangement. It is placed particularly as a snake. Its head lifts, red berries calculating Massie, and then it hisses, a forked-tongue of larkspur darting from the petals of its mouth. It slithers away, beautiful yet deadly. "You're confused."

Massie joins her on a bench. "I did say that a few times."

"Are you always this pleasant?"

"I don't know." The answer is hard. Massie doesn't remember much of her personality. She is just what the Capitol made. What the Capitol kept. What a few handwritten letters and good friends saved.

That leaves a shell and shells can be molded, but she has boundaries. She will not mold for all. She will mold for one, and everyone, even Angela, even Myner, knows that. It is all that makes her up now.

Kristen frowns, but it is less of pity and more of scientific interest. "There's a lot more to this than you know," she says, which is not helpful. Massie does not want a game right now. "It goes back years before you were born. Before I was born. But none of that really matters right now. What matters is you and what you plan on doing. _Who_ you plan on being."

"Is this what he meant by you explaining this to me?" Massie asks. "Because you're doing a shit job."

The blonde laughs, a tinkling sound. "Thanks," she says. "Tell him that so he'll stop having me do this job. I hate it."

Massie merely stares.

"He's right," Kristen continues. "We don't do things Angela's way. We don't do anything Angela wants, actually. The rebellion does not start and end with her. She does not make all the decisions, even though she likes to think she does. There are other factions. Other sides. _We_ are the other side."

"The only other side?" Massie asks.

"Of course not," says Kristen, "but we are…" She stops, changes her mind. "Yes. The only other side. The only side that matters."

"Angela knows?"

"No."

"What makes you so different? Why am I supposed to choose?" Several weeks ago she hadn't even wanted to be a part of this.

Kristen reaches up, plucks an apple from a tree branch, and shines it on her shirt. She's in casual clothes, not having gone to Massie's speech. "Angela emphasizes your crazy, does she not?" She takes a bite of the fruit. "She wants you to use what the Capitol gave you against them. We would never ask that of you. Each Victor Angela appeals to, she asks them to do things they do not want to do. She had Nate at first."

"Nate's—"

"They will squabble over it day in and day out, but Nate is the smartest person here." Kristen finishes half the apple, hands the other to Massie. "He's deemed boring by everyone but the so-called doctors and scientists over there." She says this with barely concealed venom, like those doctors and scientists are phonies. It wouldn't be surprising.

 _It wouldn't_ , Massie realizes with a jolt. No one has "real" jobs over there. They don't—do they even _have_ jobs? What do they do there besides… besides control the districts and drink fancy, disgusting cocktails? Are they even qualified to have hospitals? Were any of those doctors legally allowed to go into her mind, to mess with her brain?

Her blood is racing. It's boiling. It's lead.

Kristen sees this, doesn't comment, and pushes on: "We all have talents. He doesn't necessarily have a _talent,_ but he does have a brain. And the Capitol loves a good brain. He's never mentioned what they made him do there—he spent a significant amount of time in the Capitol before Angela got her claws in him—but I imagine it was horrifying. He literally refuses to mention it, but Angela found out. And how did Angela find out? That's the question."

Massie blinks. Opens her mouth. Bites into the apple. The juices dribble down her chin.

"Whatever it is, she wanted to use it for the rebellion," says Kristen. "He said no. Two weeks later, he was back at our doorstep. The only reason he's not dead in a ditch is because of us. Because of this place right here. And because of Todd Lyons."

"Todd's part of this? Not… not hers?"

"Wherever Nate is, Todd is," Kristen answers, "and Todd hates Angela."

"And my brother?"

"He's here, isn't he?"

Massie shrugs a shoulder. "I'm here, too, and I haven't chosen."

A breeze cuts through the humid air, cooling the sweat at Massie's neck. She closes her eyes and embraces it, chewing on a bit of apple until it is more or less mush on her tongue.

Kristen answers, "He is quiet, but I believe he's picked this."

"Believe?" Massie's mouth is full. She doesn't care. "He hasn't said?"

"No," Kristen murmurs. "Josh is holding him back. Josh is always holding him back." She sucks on her cheek, thoughtful, almost, as if this is something she is constantly thinking about. "It's not his fault he's so angry, but he's not going to get what he wants from Angela. None of us are."

"You aren't telling me how this is different," Massie notes. "You aren't convincing me this is best. You're just saying Angela has methods you do not like, and I do not like them either, but what are _you_ doing that is different from her? Wait." Massie swallows, hard and rough. "What is _anyone_ doing? For all this talk of rebellion, I don't see a rebellion happening."

"It happened today."

"A boy got murdered and I just stood there," Massie shoots back. "I look like I'm complicit in the murder. Hardly rebellious of anyone."

Kristen shakes her head. "Anthony was not murdered. He was sacrificed. He _chose_ that."

"Murder is murder is murder," Massie snaps, a murderer. They both are. "Intention does not change that."

"If you paid attention, you'd have seen _why_ he was," Kristen continues, ignoring her.

"He jumped onstage," Massie bleats. "The Peacekeepers wanted to stop the commotion and save me, probably."

"And the commotion started because the district fought amongst itself," Kristen insists. "They killed him, they killed others, because they had the audacity to imply that you, that your _father_ , beloved to all, is a creation of the Capitol."

"He is," Massie says. "We all are. The Capitol saves us. It's common knowledge."

Kristen gnashes her teeth together. "But the _way they said it_ , Massie, the way—it wasn't meant in a good light. If it was, the Peacekeepers wouldn't have attacked. They'd have let it go on. They wouldn't have _killed._ And everyone saw it. Everyone saw a district who knows the Games even more than they do—even more than the _Capitol_ —imply their Victors are not who they say they are, and it is because the Capitol makes them that way. And someone gave the order to end the chaos with murder and _everyone saw it_."

Massie frowns. "I am really, one hundred percent sure that is not the message that came across," she tells her. "Next time, try for something less subtle."

"Tell me what happened," Kristen orders. "At its core, what happened?"

"A weirdly controlled riot led to the death of a Victor's brother—" She breaks off with a strangled gasp. " _A weirdly controlled riot led to the death of a Victor's brother_."

" _And_?"

Massie inhales sharply. "And the cameras didn't go off until after it happened," she blurts, words running over themselves. "They saw it. They _all_ saw it."

"Victors are supposed to be safe from the Capitol," Kristen continues excitedly. "Everyone thinks it. Everyone hates Victors; everyone fears Victors; everyone wants to be a Victor. It is implied that once you win, you are safe, and you are well-fed, and you are taken care of. Families are included in that. They just saw proof they are not. Proof that no one is free of the president's hold."

"But—but wait," Massie says. "Todd's sister was Reaped. Ripple's name was in the bowl despite Dune having won. Kids of Victors are Reaped. They must know they are not truly protected."

"But here it is, plain as day: The murder of a Victor's brother in broad daylight, on camera, sent out to every person in every district. They can't ignore it now." Kristen shakes her head. "And what did Anthony do? _Truly,_ what did Anthony do?"

Massie murmurs, "Nothing."

Then she adds, "But is murder your only plan? That makes you no better than Myner. No better than the Games themselves."

"No," says Kristen, "but I cannot tell you more about that until you choose."

"And I have to choose between _this_ and what? Angela hasn't mentioned anything to me yet about her plans. Just that I am to act… act like there is something wrong with me."

"That's because she doesn't _have_ any plans," Kristen tells her. "She pretends she does. She _says_ she does, but she's empty. No one really knows who she is. She's just—she's _Angela_ , who is mean, and who hates people who do not agree with her, and who likes control just as much as Myner does."

It clicks, then, the words and their meaning and the imploring, insistent way Kristen is looking at her. She doesn't want it to click. Wishes it to be false. Wants more than anything to go back in time and die in that godforsaken forest.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Kristen takes Massie's hand, rubs a thumb over her knuckles. It is not comforting. "Yes."

"Does my father know?"

"We believe so, but we are not sure. He is so deep into his role it is hard to figure him out."

Massie worries her lower lip and squeezes Kristen's hand. "So, there isn't one?" she asks. "At all?"

"There is no rebellion, Massie," Kristen says. Out loud it sounds even worse. It grates her ears. Opens her skin up and makes her bleed. "Not with Angela."

 **…**

More than anything, Massie wishes she could talk to Derrick.

She'd been too scared to ask what he knew, _if_ he knew, so she kept silent, the conversation with Kristen going round and round in her head.

There is no rebellion.

There is _no rebellion_.

 _There is no rebellion._

Not with Angela.

It reminds Massie she knows nothing. Has never known anything. Was the rebellion just an Angela thing? When did it start? Why did it start?

And that's the funny thing—no one has any of those answers. _No one knows._

Nothing comes out of nowhere. Nothing just _appears._

There is no rebellion. Not with Angela.

But the rebellion in Three, a faction of Angela's false counterattack, started the day Nathan Biggs landed on their doorstep. Nathan who asks to go by Nate. Nathan who did not lift one finger to kill anyone in his quote-unquote _boring_ Games. Nathan who looks and acts more like a teddy bear than a human.

It was nothing more than a few angry and sad people, hiding away in an abandoned factory no one checked because of a lie about radiation. When Abeley came back, missing an eye—no, not _allowed_ to have an eye because it was _popular_ with the people of the Capitol—the ideas started flowing. The anger and sadness turned into action.

They've been around, actually doing things, for a short while. A lot of their small acts wore on the districts, especially the poorer ones, but they were enough to make a scene, no matter how large. They were not hitting quotas, having Capitolites and their own people go hungry for weeks. They were blowing up machinery and setting "accidental" fires to crops. Their cattle were getting sick, their green plants developing viruses that could kill a person.

All the stories Massie had seen and read about; all the inconveniences she'd never thought twice about, never _cared_ about—it was all part of a bigger picture.

But it wasn't enough.

And then, somehow, it was. The Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games was enough. It showed them promise. It showed them hope. It showed them _Massie._

She spits out her toothpaste in the sink, swishes water around in her mouth, and exits the bathroom.

Cam is curled up in a ball on her bed, under her comforter, using her favorite pillow. He looks pale and sad and so, so tired. That is the only reason she doesn't fight him for her things.

That doesn't stop her from talking, though.

She prods at his arm until he gives in and holds her, the cologne he'd worn still clinging to him and now her and rests her head just beneath his chin. He sighs, like he knows already.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth about Josh?"

"You'd rather I had told you I don't want to get too involved with him because I don't trust him?" Cam asks. "That'd have gone over well."

"Does he know what happened to Nate?" Massie ignores the way her stomach churns. She already doesn't like Josh, but she thinks being in love with him is probably already getting "too involved."

Cam shakes his head. She feels it. "Even if he did, he wouldn't care. He doesn't like Nate and he doesn't like Todd. He doesn't like anybody."

"He likes you," Massie whispers. She remembers how both Derrick and Cam said Josh liked her _enough_. That couldn't have been the truth.

"It may not be enough," Cam says softly. "If he gets too involved in Angela—"

"Angela isn't doing anything," Massie interrupts. "It's not like he's on the wrong side or—"

"Oh, she's doing something," Cam mutters darkly. "Nate knows, and Nate's not telling, which means it's bad. _It's bad_ , Massie, and Josh is—Josh—Josh is her _person._ "

Massie runs a hand down his back. She knows this feeling, knows what it's like to be confused and lost.

"She _uses_ people," Cam hisses. "She… she's no better than Myner. She's _worse_ , because she makes you think she's on your side but she's just—she's—"

Massie untangles herself from him, sits up. Cam shifts, dark hair too long now and splaying against the pillowcase. He blinks up at her, eyes like jewels in the dimness of the room, and she wonders when she started taking care of him. When he started letting her.

Had he always been like this, just hiding in his own room? With no one to talk to? With nothing to anchor him? Had he been waiting for someone to tell him it was okay to fall apart? Had he needed her to say what she said that day on the train? Had he needed her this whole time and she hadn't noticed?

"She did it to you, too," Massie says. It sounds too loud. "They think it was only Nate because he came back within an inch of his life, but she wouldn't… she would make sure there was no proof—" Her voice gets caught in her throat. She can't push it out. Can't say what she wants to, only imagines what she's seen on him before.

The bruises.

The scars.

The marks.

His silence makes her uncomfortable, but it is his eyes that answer her. They widen. That's all they do. That's the confirmation.

"How long? Why?" Massie scrambles to hold him again, skin to skin. Her fingers wrap around his wrist. "What did she make you do?"

Cam looks up and over, away from her. His hand moves to hold hers, wrestling the fingers from his wrist. She can feel him trembling. She can feel the answer in his touch, even as he tries to find the words.

"She claims information on the trains and hovercrafts is imperative to the cause," Cam finally says.

"To what cause?"

"I don't know," Cam admits. He looks upset with himself. "I never bothered to ask because it made sense."

Massie frowns. "What kind of information did she want you to get?"

"Schedules, how they're made, how they're bugged." Cam lists things off like they mean something, like they _matter._

"And she sent you to do it. How?"

Cam licks his lips. "Three years ago the son of the Transportation Commissioner bought me. He liked me so much he… kept buying me. Angela found out and asked me to retrieve the information she wanted. So I sought him out, made him want more, asked him questions. He doesn't know anything."

"He wouldn't," Massie murmurs. "Why would his father share that with him?"

"Angela says he's being primed for the position," Cam answers. "She says I'm not trying hard enough. She says maybe—maybe I have the wrong person."

Massie tightens her grip on his hand. She leans forward, runs her fingers through his hair. "Did Myner ever have you sleep with him? The Transportation Coordinator?"

"No," Cam breathes. "Just her."

Massie bites her bottom lip so hard she draws blood, but, hey, it's better than yelling.

 **…**

They are delayed from leaving Three because of the earlier commotion. "Extra precautions" are being put in place in Two, which is weird, given the district's loyalty, but the president has to make a point, doesn't he?

It's not entirely unwelcome. Massie needs time to stop reeling from all she's heard, needs a chance to _breathe._

She doesn't get that.

Instead she gets Nate, banging on their front door, if they can even call it that. And the thing about these trains is they do not really lock.

So she gets Nate, who bangs on the door, and then she gets Nate, who strides through their dining car like he owns it, and then she gets Nate, who sits across from her, steals her bowl of cereal, and slurps.

Massie wishes she cared a little more. She merely gets up, makes another bowl, and goes back to her seat.

"Myner is going to announce the Quarter Quell as soon as you get back home," Nate tells her.

"A little late, don't you think?" Massie says back. "I should get back a week before the Games."

"Yeah," agrees Nate. "It would be late if he needed more people to prepare for it."

"What does that mean?" she asks.

He chews like he's ripping apart a piece of steak. "It's about you," he tells her. "The Quell."

"That is unsurprising," Massie replies, calm calm calm even though her insides are screaming. "But it cannot _just_ be me."

"I wish I knew more," Nate admits, apologetic. "The feed cut out before there was anything else." He pushes his bowl away. "There's a party for you, though."

"To crown me Victor," Massie says softly. "I have a feeling I won't be getting that crown."

Nate scrutinizes her, light eyes seemingly all-knowing. "I have a feeling we will all be there to see it."

It's uncomfortable, this knowledge they both have. Because of the silence they sit in, it's almost too loud. Too stifling.

They both finish their breakfasts. Nate pours himself tea and Massie watches him, studying him like it's before she volunteered and she was getting to know other Victors and their strategies. Once upon a time she had favorites—favorite ways to kill, to dismember, to torture. Now she just has nausea and bone-crushing guilt.

Nathan acts like a Three but has the build of a Two or a Four. His hair is as messy as Cam's can get, and he has the smoothest skin on his face. It's unfair. He does not look like a man who beat twenty-three others. Doesn't even look like he _could._

But he is the smartest person here, Massie remembers Kristen saying. Must be if he knows all that he knows. He must also be hard to remember, unremarkable, if he's able to find out secrets and information and distribute them to the appropriate parties the way he does.

He watches her watch him, taking tiny, particular sips of his tea. His hands shake when he puts the cup down. His voice does not when he poses, "Do you know what the game _Clue_ is?"

She shakes her head, reaches for a raspberry scone.

Nate breaks one in half, hands it to her, takes the rest. "It's an old board game," he says. "It can also be played on the computer, but no one has had personal computers in years to play games on. It's a murder mystery game."

Massie bites into her food.

"In the game, every character you can play is a suspect. You pick one you want to be and guess who killed the victim in which room of this mansion and with what. There are a stack of cards no one has seen placed in the middle of the board. You have cards, too, with clues. If you have a weapon or a person or a location on one of your cards, that means those are out of play. They didn't do it. You pay careful attention to everyone and everything until you narrow it down to who, what, and where. And then you guess. If you're wrong, you're out."

"A game of observance, then," Massie surmises. "And quick thinking."

Nate nods, breaking his scone into pieces. He doesn't have a plate, just his milky bowl. "That's how I won." He sniffs, glancing at her. "I did not personally kill anyone, but I killed them all."

"How?" Massie tries to remember Nate's Games, and she should, because they were not too long ago, but that was the year she finally got to start training with weapons so it's a bit fuzzy. She remembers a house, though, a large, looming Victorian house.

"I cut the power in the so-called haunted house we were in," Nate says. "It sparked back on occasionally, for glimpses of what was going on, but it rendered everyone blind and useless. Tributes only had the one weapon they managed to grab from the parlor room and then they hunted. I had them kill themselves off, senses dulled from the dark. The Capitol made a game of it, guessing who would kill who and with what and where."

"But you must've had to—"

"No." Todd grimaces. "The last two thought one of them would win. They didn't realize… No one came for the One girl when she was bleeding out after dueling with the girl from Eight. She didn't understand why she was being allowed to die like that. Her intestines were out of her body." He wipes his hands, crumbs and all, on his pants. "It's because the whole time they were fighting, I was standing at the end of the hallway, watching. They thought I was a ghost. I was not. I was just… forgotten."

"And were there actually ghosts?" Massie asks. "There must've been, for them to think you were one."

"Those were the mutts that year," Nate murmurs. "They were so real you couldn't tell if they were dead or not." He swipes his hand down his jaw. "They didn't bother with me though. I think everyone forgot about me, even the Capitol."

"I'm sure—"

"That's how I like it," Nate interrupts, the only time he's ever shown dominance in the time she's met him. "That's how I'd like it to stay."

Massie can't help but ask, "What happened to you?"

Nate takes a really long time to answer. He's come here for this, someone must've pushed him to talk to her, because she hadn't made any clear decisions yesterday. Hadn't said yes. Hadn't said no. Hadn't said anything, actually. Told Cam she was tired and wanted to leave, even though after everything, she knew her answer was them.

"I was nothing," he says. "I was no one. What does nothing and no one do?"

"Whatever you want," she answers. "Spy." The word is rough against her tongue. It rips at her throat like a blade.

"I was there," he continues, "when they played with your mind. You couldn't see me, could you?"

She couldn't see anything they didn't let her see. If she did, they made sure she could never do it again.

"It's all about intention," Nate explains. "If I want to be a shadow, I am a shadow. No one cares about me. No one looks for me. I am everywhere and I am nowhere."

"So you let them fuck with me." She doesn't mean to sound so defensive, so angry. She doesn't know him now. She didn't know him then. How can she expect him to protect her?

He looks ashamed, it that means anything. "I watched," he agrees. "I learned." His scone is a pile of crust and berry in a puddle of milk. "The offer stands. If you want me to look into your mind, I will. I know what they did."

"What will that do?" She asks. She doesn't like the hope creeping in her system. If he knows what they did…

Nate squishes a raspberry between his fingers. "Something. Nothing." He shrugs. "I'll be able to see how tight the control holds, at the least. See what they used to secure it."

"It wasn't the venom?"

"It was," Nate says, "but there has to be more. Venom fades, as you can tell. As you know. You are more or less back to normal at this point. Maybe not _your_ normal," he adds when she opens her mouth, "but normally functioning. It could be interesting."

"Maybe," She says.

He tips his head. "After you finish the Tour, perhaps."

 _After you survive the Quell_ , he really means.

Massie's answering nod is tight.

Nate looks at his watch, stands. "They should be secured in Two now," he deduces. "When you see him, tell Todd I say hello."

He is gone in a flash of black and the scone in Massie's mouth tastes of ash.

She spits it out.


	14. Part Fourteen: Trust

**_Sorry I've been MIA for so long! I hate looking at computers outside of work and this needed major editing because I didn't like how it sounded. And then I didn't like how it sounded for about 2 weeks and then I gave up for a bit. But I'm back, and this is back, and it's almost done, I swear. I want this to be done by the end of summer so I can stop worrying about it._**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
Part Fourteen_

* * *

 **trust |** **trəst  
** noun  
 _firm belief in the reliability, ability, or strength of someone or something  
_ synonyms: confidence, certainty, belief, faith, assurance, conviction, reliance

* * *

Asleep, her mind wanders without constraint. There is no one and nothing to keep her grounded, to differentiate the real from the imagined from the remembered. The tendrils of her unconscious snip at strings and unravel the web her multiple pasts have created and unleash upon her terrors that only she could conjure up. She wakes often with sweaty palms and a racing heart, stomach in her throat and breaths like pants.

Tonight is no different.

Her brain has manifested a scene she doesn't quite recall, but it's familiar enough she knows something about it holds a seed of truth.

Sweat slithers uncomfortably down her spine, pooling in the dip at her lower back. A rock digs into her back; she imagines it breaking away at her skin, slowly and surely making its way into her tendons and muscles and veins. She's probably bleeding.

Skye Hamilton sits on her, leaning up on her knees to keep her in place, and there is this maniacal gleam in her eyes. In the way she smiles. Massie recognizes that look. She's spent days becoming apprehensive of it.

She starts babbling, Skye does, about honor and pride and winning and how Massie never smiles but everyone loves her anyway, and Massie would respond in kind, probably say something witty and mean, but she _can't._ She can't breathe; she can't talk. She can hardly focus on anything—thoughts, movements, plans—with the weight on her throat.

Her mouth hurts from what feels like smiling too hard, forcing her cheeks into a position they are very rarely in (because Skye is right: Massie does not smile, not really). While blood trickles down her face, sticky and wet and warm, her throat tightens and her head swims and her leg kicks out, a useless endeavor.

And Skye is no longer there, a limp form to her right, kind of like that boy from Three, the one who died, the one related to another Victor she can't remember right now, and Kemp is above her, big and dark and still as fiercely handsome as Massie remembered. A different kind of handsome than Derrick, who is pretty with his statuesque edges. Kemp was always the kind of frighteningly attractive that fathers warned their daughters against; he was sharp smirks and perfect words, poised like weapons on his tongue.

The colors of his eyes change so quickly Massie feels even more nauseous than she thought possible. She can't remember what they looked like. She doesn't think she remembers the shape of his nose either. It looks too delicate to be his.

There is one thing she does remember, one thing she could never forget. Even awake, his voice haunts her, and it is that deep baritone that rumbles in her ear, even as he chokes her death.

His eyes are blue and green and brown and black and back again and his voice is a sensual whisper, a caress, as he says, "Do not trust Two. Trust me."

 _Trust you?_ Massie wants to snap back. _How can I when you're trying to kill me?_

He seems to hear her anyway and smiles, teeth gleaming. "You always knew what kind of person I was, even if you refused to believe it," he replies. "Can you say that about anyone else?"

Massie has no chance to formulate an answer because he kills her.

She is silent as she dies, esophagus crushed beneath his hands, neck nothing but a bruised slab of flesh, but she is screaming—she is _shrieking_ —as she wakes, shouts echoing around the train car she's been forced to call home for the past half a year.

She tells Cam she doesn't remember what she dreamt, and as he smiles at her, soft and friendly and very much not out to get her, she swears she can see the vicious twist of Kemp's infamous smirk mar his features.

Cam runs his fingers through her hair like he always does when she's stressed like this and doesn't ask any more questions. She can see he wants to, all of them poised at the tip of his tongue, but she appreciates him holding back.

Kemp's words rotate round and round in her head like a carousel, even as Cam slowly but surely lulls her back to sleep.

 _Can you say that about anyone else?_

Cam has one blue eye and one green eye. His dark hair is long now, falling into them. Normally Massie would brush it out of the way, some sort of thank you for always taking care of her, but she is more focused on the answer she has to Kemp's question, because she's finally formed one.

 _Can't you say that about anyone else?_

No.

The train chugs over the border.

 **…**

There's nothing really _wrong_ with Two. It is similar to every other district she's been to, divided by rich and poor, Victor and not. There's a train station, a Justice Building, and a town square. There are houses and employment offices and schools and places to hide. There's a mountain, too, where the military might is hidden, but Massie is used to odd things like that; One houses miles and miles of caves and mines and dark, dank locations where gems and jewels are found.

There's nothing wrong with Two, okay, but it has the same feeling the arena did. Like it's bursting with energy, with tricks, with twists—all hidden where you can't find them. Massie shakes the hand of some important figure here, maybe the mayor, maybe the head of the Academy, she's not sure, and is convinced the second she looks away they are going to turn into some kind of mutt.

She is not safe here, she knows that, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize most people here do not like her. Unlike the other times, there is no one to cling to; Cam, as she recalls, is quite popular here and he is whisked away the second they see him.

He squeezes her hand—two quick pulses—in what she thinks is reassurance and finds herself not reassured (or even assured) at all. She is empty without him, itchy in a way she can't explain. Everyone is looking at her and not in the way they normally do, like they are sort of scared of her but more interested and inspired by a storyline she never remembered writing. They are inspecting, they are watching, they are waiting.

They know that both of their tributes were murdered by two others who were, by all means, better than them, but only because they outlived them. Ripple's death was the soundtrack of Landon and Skye's mutual demises, and Two is not a district that finds love endearing.

It's a love story that she's tangled in—an inter-district love story that should have never come to pass—but that's not the love story they should be telling. If it all goes well, if Massie gets her head out of her ass and figures it out, it will be the love story that saves the world.

But, really, it will be Ripple.

Ripple, who was twelve and didn't belong there and knew all this shit about natural healing aids. Ripple, who was seen as Derrick Harrington's biggest weakness. Ripple, who was loved by both Derrick _and_ Massie and suffered for it.

Massie feels nauseous, realizes she's been looking into the face of someone who _has_ to be related to Landon Crane, and blinks.

Part of her can still feel the way his gaze made her feel like he was trying to skin her alive. All of her remembers the footage of him torturing Ripple to death.

"They can smell fear," Alicia Rivera hisses, sinking her nails into Massie's elbow. The shock of pain is enough to clear Massie's head, even as she inhales sharply. "Fix your face and your posture and remember that you're better than _all of them._ You are a Victor, Massie; it's high time you started acting like it."

She likes to think she acts like a Victor all the time, if the PTSD and survivor's guilt and overall anxiety are anything to go by, but she reckons that's not the type of behavior Alicia is alluding to.

So she acts. It's what she's been doing the past few months.

All she has to do is think of her dad, strong and mysterious, and Cam, alluring and attentive, and Derrick, charismatic and pretty.

Massie lets her mouth smile even as her insides stew and lays the fingers of her other hand over Alicia's.

Her smirk must work; there is a grumbling through the crowd, the one meant to unnerve her, no doubt, and people start slinking away. It's almost like they're disappointed she hasn't melted into a puddle and Massie finds herself thrilled with their reaction. They think she's hanging on by a thread—and she is, don't you worry—but she will never show them that. At least not so blatantly.

There is nothing wrong with Two. Their morals are questionable, but so are the ones in her own hometown, and they value the Games in a way not many, not even the other Career districts, do. Their intensity and their drive and… and what they believe is honorable (read: winning the Hunger Games or dying trying) are unnerving, but it's nothing Massie can't handle. She survived Twelve, didn't she, and she massacred their tributes for no reason other than, well, she _could_.

"Good," Alicia murmurs. Her voice is a soft caress in Massie's ear. "Keep that up and you'll be fine here."

Nothing to worry about here. She's survived the Capitol, the president, the _arena_ , and everything else in between. She can handle this. She _can_ , even as dream Kemp's voice brushed against her brain, soft like a summer breeze.

 _Do not trust Two._

"Come," Alicia instructs. "My prep squad is your prep squad. Let's get you ready for tonight. Two loves a good party."

Massie lets her lead her away, instilling confidence in every step she takes until she is full of it, as forced as it may be. That does not shake the unease that settles in the small of her back. It does not stop her from feeling like something is _wrong_ , like something is going to _happen_.

When she turns her head just a smidge—not even enough for anyone to notice—she sees bright blue eyes staring back at her.

She clenches her jaw.

 **…**

Joyce tuts exasperatedly when Massie shakes her head and digs her fingers in the younger girl's hair. Pulls the strands tight enough to keep her in place and snaps, "Don't."

"But I can't wear this," she argues, vehement and angry, missing Jakkob and his gentle hands more than she should. Alicia's prep team are harsh and _mean_. "I look… I look…"

"Beautiful?" the woman, eyes altered like a cat's, interrupts. She twists locks of dark hair into place. "Regal? Like you _belong_?"

"Like a _bride_ ," Massie retorts. "Pure. Innocent. Easily breakable." She sniffs, rudely tugs at the heavy skirts of her dress, three layers of tulle that feel more like several pounds of concrete. "Why do I have to wear white?"

She wants to ask _why do I have to wear this_ but doesn't. She's been picking her own outfits out this whole time, pieces provided by Jakkob, but still, each of them had been of her own choosing. This, she knows, is not something he'd leave for her.

A pin is stuck in her hair. It stabs at her scalp, digging in a bit too tight. Deliberate, probably.

"It's what was chosen for you," Joyce says, and that's that.

"Is it Alicia's?" Even as she asks it she knows it isn't. She'd never fit in something tailored for Alicia, and it's not like the people in Two would alter so drastically something for her.

The lace of her top itches as Joyce answers, "No. It's new. It came with a note attached. Did you not see it when you put it on?"

"No."

There is a heavy sigh behind her, then rustling. "It was this," her borrowed stylist informs her. "Now will you _please_ stand still? I'm almost done with your hair."

It's barely a note, just a few scrawled our words, but Massie takes them in greedily. _I saw this_ , it says, _and thought you'd look beautiful in it._ It is signed _D_ with a flourish.

She doesn't know many people with names that begin with that letter and while she does not recognize the handwriting she does not peg Dylan Marvil as the type of person to think she'd look beautiful in a white dress fit for a bride. So it has to be—it _must_ be—from Derrick.

Because, honestly, who else would it be from?

Massie remains still, even as her hair is tugged this way and that. Even as the fabric of her top digs uncomfortably into her back. Even as her eye is poked with a mascara wand.

When she looks at herself in the mirror, she is pleased to see no jewels have been placed anywhere on her body. Her hair is free of them, volumized and twisted into a braided half-updo that could rival that of anyone currently in the Capitol. She looks great, there's no doubt about that, but she is pleasantly surprised by it anyway; she is less a bride and more a ballerina, especially with the shoes her feet are shoved into—pink flats that lace up to just below her knee, the only color in her entire outfit. Her lips are painted the same shade to match and Massie feels like a doll, the kind her mother hoarded in her closet, eternally smiling and waiting for someone to play with them.

Even if the dress is a thoughtful gift, she knows everything about her is deliberate from her hair to her shoes. She is made to be the complete opposite of the district—less of a threat than the blacks and reds and grays that take over the community. Weird, though, since she killed one of their own, but she touches the back of her head daintily, brushing the braids and wonders very vaguely and very briefly if they are meant to represent the coils of the rope that tied her up that fateful night three of the tributes died.

"Stop touching," Joyce snaps, whacking her hand away. "You'll ruin them."

What are they supposed to be? A reminder of who these people are? A subtle leash, telling her who is in control even if she is a Victor?

Massie drops her arms, lets them lay straight at her sides. She squints at Joyce, wonders if she hates her too, wonders if she had done things like this to Skye before she entered the arena.

If the braids are a reminder that she was once tied up and at the mercy of a Two girl, it may do some good to mess them up later on. Send her _own_ reminder. She made it out of their chains once before. She can survive this night, too.

 **…**

Massie is certain wine is not supposed to taste like this, warm and thick and heavy on her tongue. It is bitter and dry like a merlot is supposed to be, but the texture and temperature are complete contrasts to what she is used to. To what she knows.

Still, she swallows and sips, swallows and sips, pretending she is not slowly convincing herself she is drinking blood.

Because blood feels like this. She would know. She's done her time with blood: her own, someone else's. She's stood in it as it pooled around her shoes on the stage in Three. She's licked it from Derrick's fingers. She's felt it as it dripped from a wound on her stomach.

The mere thought of it makes her skin crawl. She can _see_ it, the things that can happen to people that make them bleed. She can see the things she's done to make sure of it. The things she's done that resulted in death, because what is the point of blood if it does not result in the end of life?

Everyone is watching her. They are all watching her, the important figures in Two surrounding her at this party. In a sea of tuxes and fancy dresses and pantsuits, all veering towards the colors of nightmares, Massie sticks out like a sore thumb, and they are all watching as she breaks down.

Her hand trembles as she drinks. Trembles as she remembers Claire and Miles, Skye, Carrie, Kemp. Remembers how they died, what she'd done, how she dug and dug and hurt and hurt until they were nothing but flesh, dead beneath her hands and her blades.

It is hot now.

Hard to breathe.

Massie takes another hefty swallow of the wine—it has to be wine it can't not be wine—and tries to remember the breathing techniques she'd needed months ago. She's not about to pitch a fit here, even if this place feels like it's only purpose is to cause her stress.

It's just…

The whole layout is irksome, like some shrine to Hunger Games past. It's on an equal, or worse, playing field as the president's eerie memorabilia room, this space. This—is it a ballroom? What _is_ it? Whatever it is, it's located in a rather popular hotel in Two, named something in French or German or some other dead language, and it's got an entire wall of skulls. _Skulls_ , grinning and staring and _knowing._

Massie is too tightly wound to check them out, to see if they're real, but there are two snakes currently slithering across the floor, and those are definitely _not_ not-alive, so she's convinced they're, like, the heads of dead tributes. She wouldn't be surprised.

The thought upsets her, makes her wonder if Skye and Landon are there somewhere, and she drains her glass. The sides are stained red, and she imagines her teeth are too, and she's surprised she hasn't spilled any on this white, white dress, so white she's glowing here, and she places the thing on a waiter's passing tray. She accepts another, sniffs at it petulantly, and decides if she's going down, she's going down swinging, am I right?

"Slow down on that, yeah?" Alicia materializes at her side, plucking a handkerchief out of nowhere and dropping it over the rim of Massie's glass. "Things are not all they seem here."

Mind a little hazy, Massie blurts, "Please tell me I'm not drinking blood."

Alicia laughs, a little bit startled, and replies, "Blood? No. But the alcohol is strong here, and you don't want to be _that_ girl, do you?"

"That girl" meaning the Victor that can't handle her liquor and vomits all over the place. Kristen Gregory did that when she toured, and it was news for months after it was over. They'd speculated it time and time again that it was no surprise when they started discussing her alcoholism. But given the way this room is set up, Massie has no doubt they intend to break new Victors here: it's a decorated nightmare. It feels like the walls are caving in and the dead are speaking to you and if you turn around someone is going to axe you, just sever you right down the middle. No wonder people go heavy on the drink; they're trying to escape what already haunts them.

Two revels in the haunt. In the terror. In the gore. Massie saw it in Skye and Landon. Had seen it in herself, even though this sort of macabre did not travel fully to One.

Just remembering the way she'd delighted in death and murder makes her shiver now. Makes her knock Alicia's napkin off her cup and take a swig.

"I said it's _strong_ ," Alicia snaps.

"If I could drink my weight in every other district and not make a scene in public, I can do it here too," decides Massie.

"No," Alicia says again. "You still have to make rounds and talk to all these people who came out to see you. You don't have a buffer here like everywhere else."

A buffer.

Cam.

She doesn't have Cam, like she did everywhere else, because he's… he's off doing god knows what. The thought settles uncomfortably in her stomach, right where the heavy wine is. Nausea lurches up to her throat and sticks to the roof of her mouth, metallic and fierce. She's alone. _Alone._

How can she possibly do this without him and his carefully curated speeches and flippant smiles and easy conversation topics? How can she even manage a minute on her own when she's more inclined to stay in corners and sip at drinks she never bothered to figure out the contents of? How can she—how can she do _anything_?

Given everything she now knows, which is just a lot of things she doesn't know, Massie is probably not the best person to leave unsupervised.

"Will they even like me without him?" she blurts out—because of course she does—and feels stupid and insecure ten seconds later. Her tongue presses against the back of her teeth as she averts her gaze.

The skeleton wall leers back at her.

"I do," Alicia answers with the dignity of someone who is not watching another person fall apart in front of her.

"You do what?" Massie asks. The skull closes its mouth, opens it again. An eye winks, but that can't be right. There's nothing there, just empty space.

Alicia grabs her hand. Massie's is clammy. "Like you without him," she provides.

An answering scoff. Disbelieving. "Only because he told you to."

"Don't tell anyone," Alicia whispers conspiratorially, "but I found Skye pretentious and annoying. I was happy when she was gone. I don't know what I would have done had she won."

"She'd have gone crazy if she had," supplies Massie.

"She already was, wasn't she, though?" Alicia drops Massie's glass, half full, on a table. "It happens to the best of us here. The worst, too."

Massie finally looks away from the wall, either intrigued by the subject or overwhelmed by the tricks her mind is playing on her. It's hard to tell. "How'd you escape it?"

It's weird, maybe, that Alicia dabs at Massie's mouth like she's a child, napkin coming back stained red from the wine and pink from her lipstick. "Who says I did?" There is no response for that, of course, so Massie remains silent, lets Alicia take the reigns. "Come on. I'll help you out for as long as I can."

"What?"

"My talents are needed elsewhere soon," Alicia tells her, "but I can do enough in the time we have. Remember what I'm about to tell you."

She leads her from her alcove, murmuring this way and that about the mayor, who Massie's met already, and the Head of the Peacekeeper Division, who is enamored with the teachings and strategies of the Ancient Greeks, and the Senior Trainer at the Academy, who will want to talk Massie's knife skills.

For the next forty minutes, and the hour after that, Massie loses herself.

 **…**

Alicia may have been right: the wine may have been stronger than she anticipated.

Or maybe the old Massie is still inside her somewhere, eager to talk about training strategies and death, debate the meaning of honor and the angle of a blade for the perfect kill.

(It's not like she really ever _willingly_ did anything for the rebellion, if you recall. She's merely selfish, and selfish people do not often change.)

 **…**

Massie smacks her lips after that last glass of wine and finds the warm, heavy taste she'd so adamantly been against earlier oddly refreshing. Maybe her taste buds have opened up, or maybe she's finally stopped being so nervous, but there's hints of fruits in there, small bursts of citrus and the sweet tang of apple.

It's _good_ , the wine is, and Massie deserves another, if only in celebration. She's managed to speak to everyone here like a normal, proper Victor, even after Alicia slunk away to do god knows what. That's a theme here, Massie notes, that all her friends are always off doing something she doesn't know, something she would probably dislike. She doesn't want to think about that, though, so she dispels it from her mind and accepts another drink.

 _To me_ , she thinks, eying a figure as it cuts through the crowd to head towards her. She hasn't seen this one yet, and she's gone around this ballroom a number of times in the past two hours. She's even stared at that skull wall and expressed apologies to Skye's family, even if she doesn't mean them. That girl deserved to die; she was a _whole_ nuisance and an embarrassment to the name "Career."

She's thinking about the reckless way that girl walked and the way she used to make all that _noise_ when her glass is plucked out of her hand.

"Hey," she exclaims, slapping her palm against his bicep as he knocks back her drink in one large swallow. "You know, that's _rude_ —"

"Alicia told you not to drink that, Massie."

"She said to slow down actually, not to _not_ drink it," the girl retorts. "Why does it even matter to you?"

"Because _you_ matter to me," he says.

Massie frowns, crossing her arms over her chest. "Okay, and you're allowed to drink it but I'm not?"

He shrugs a shoulder, all presumptuous and annoying, the hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. "I haven't spent the past three hours drinking nothing but wine," he replies, and Massie hates him.

Except she doesn't, of course, and if he thinks wearing a tiny black mask is going to keep his identity a secret he is terribly mistaken. She tells him this. The last part, not the first.

"True," he agrees and he takes it off. "They already know I'm here. I've been—summoned." His eyebrows pinch at the word, mouth forming it in distaste.

Massie watches his tongue run over his teeth before asking, "How long have you been here?"

"A day and a half," he answers.

"Who?"

"The general's wife."

"The general—"

Derrick looks like he wants to reach out and touch her. In fact, his arm lifts, fingers reaching out, but he merely shoves both fists into the pockets of his slacks. Rolling onto his heels, he murmurs, "The entirety of the Capitol's military is here. Of course there is a general."

"A _war_ general?"

"What other kinds of generals do you know?" Derrick laughs. When he does, his nose wrinkles. Massie finds it adorable. "War has always been on the horizon. It's just a matter of finding the right time. The right person."

"I'm not," Massie begins.

"I know," he cuts in quickly, easily, "but you're part of it. You made that choice."

"I just—I'm not that person," Massie says. Maybe they shouldn't be talking about this here. Maybe she shouldn't be trying to remember who the general is, if she's met him, if she's met his wife. Maybe she shouldn't be looking for them so blatantly in the crowd, eyes fixed on the tables and people behind Derrick, who probably shouldn't be here, standing so close to her. "I'm not good enough to be that person. I don't have the intentions or conscience to be that person."

Derrick shifts so she has to look at him. "You're good enough for me."

"Still surprising."

"Why's that?"

"I've spent most of the time I've known you fantasizing about killing you," she admits freely. It's like her ability to keep things to herself has been tampered with. Probably the alcohol in her system. "I dream about it a lot, the ways I'll do it. It's like the brainwashing never went away sometimes. I wake up expecting to be in the arena still, before everything happened. Or the arena they made for me, where I don't like you at all."

He blinks and for one prolonged second Massie sees the shock in his eyes. The eyes that aren't hers, brighter, browner, ringed with green. She doesn't like how he's looking at her, but she can't remember why he is. Did she say something to upset him?

It's gone, that look, before she can really focus on it and she takes a step back when he lifts a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. She doesn't know why she does it. It's like she's startled by him and not in the way she should be, but in a way that implies he's going to hurt her, and she knows— _she knows_ —deep down he never has, never will.

"Are you okay?" he asks. If she focuses hard enough she can hear the pain in his voice, like this is a version of her he doesn't like, or doesn't know, but she doesn't feel any different.

Her eyes flit from his to the skull wall, to the tables of guests, to a flurry of motion in the hallway beyond. "Someone told me," she says, "that their favorite part of the Games was when I stabbed Kemp to death."

"That was—it was memorable," Derrick offers.

Massie nods. "My favorite part was when I killed Skye." She looks away from the wall, from the head she's decided is Skye's, and glances up at Derrick's face. "What was yours?"

"When it was over," he answers slowly. "Massie, are you—"

"I wonder why I always let other people make decisions for me," she goes on, as if he's never spoken. _When it was over_ : what a terrible answer. "I could have been great if I didn't have every person in One telling me Kemp was better than me. I could've been the Career they all expected me to be. I had a clearer head than him, but because I was a girl they thought me more emotional. Did you know that?"

"No, I didn't," Derrick replies. "That's not what you wanted, though. That's not who you _are_. You're not a Career, not really."

"What I wanted," Massie starts, wriggling her glass out of his hand. He hasn't finished all of it. "What I wanted was to be more than they made me. I did that."

"You did," agrees Derrick. He watches her finish the wine and grabs her elbow. A flutter of heat surges through Massie's body, envelopes her heart, wraps her in a cocoon. "You're everything and more."

"I am," she murmurs. "They should be scared of me now."

"And they are," Derrick says. He's so good at following her thoughts, at matching her conversations. At least she thinks so. She doesn't see the strain in his mouth or the frown in his brow. "They see what you can be. What you _are._ They tried to tamper with it, remember? They tried to make you hate me. Love them."

"Silly," Massie remarks. She shakes his hand off her, catches it with her own. Intertwines their fingers. "I could never—you saved me."

Derrick smiles, and Massie cannot tell that it's forced and uncomfortable, cannot feel the worry in the kiss he presses to her forehead. "You saved me," he tells her, cupping her cheeks. "If I could spend the rest of my life with you, I would."

"Why can't you?" Massie asks.

He kisses her again, this time at the corner of her mouth, where she can feel the heat of him, and says, "It's not that easy."

"Yes, it is," she says. "We can make it that easy."

Derrick takes his lip between his teeth, gnaws on it as he debates his next words. "You shot that idea down pretty thoroughly, if I recall."

"Only because I was scared. I'm not scared anymore."

He looks like he's got a hundred things he wants to say, maybe a hundred things he shouldn't say, but he sees something behind her, something that makes him shut his mouth and straighten his spine.

Massie turns to look, but he takes her hands, keeps her facing forward. "I have to go," he tells her. His eyes take her in hungrily. "You're the prettiest girl I know."

He doesn't care, and she doesn't care, and maybe it doesn't matter anymore—Derrick captures her mouth with his. It's short, but it's enough, and it leaves Massie's lips tingling long after he's gone.

Five minutes later, all she can taste is his confusion and disappointment, so very different from what he usually is, but she cannot remember why he left her that way. She can't remember much of anything, and as the skull wall stares at her, and someone decides to replay the most gruesome kills of her Games (and every other Games there is), Massie finds she likes not knowing. Not remembering.

She drinks more wine.

 **…**

Eventually they have to sit for dinner, which reminds Massie that she hasn't eaten anything of substance all day. She's just been drinking wine and munching on appetizers she doesn't remember the taste of for hours. They seat her with no one she knows—she sees Cam at a table across the room, Derrick at a different one, and Alicia with every important figure in Two—but Massie is not concerned, not anymore, and she breaks a piece of bread to dip in olive oil.

Olive oil, which is something not everyone gets in these districts—a commodity that people here and in One take for granted. Probably Four, too, how else do they cook their fish? She ponders this—the things she's allowed to have that others aren't, and to a lesser extent the injustices the people of the outer districts face that she will never understand.

She chews on her bread, mind a whirlwind. Waiters flit around her, dropping off plates and refilling her water glass, but she hardly registers their presence. It isn't until there is a polite cough next to her that she pulls herself out of her thoughts, making no sense anymore.

"Thinking hard about something?" the boy—no, that's not right, but man does not do it either—asks. He has a very easy smile, directed her way, and eyes the color of a calm sea. She thinks she's seen him before, but she doesn't remember. She thinks she would: a face like that? Hard to forget. "Can't imagine there is much a Victor needs to puzzle over as much as you are."

These words are spoken to her oddly and that gives her pause. Her gaze roams over him, looks for something that announces who he is, but can't find it.

Massie answers, "Just because I have won doesn't mean my problems have disappeared. Everyone always assumes the worst is over once you get out of the arena, but most of the time the worst is still waiting for you to get back."

Not that she can relate to that. Life was fine for her before and it is fine (sort of) for her now. But if there is one thing she's learned this tour, it's that life is not always so easy for everyone else.

She's also not sure why she answered him like that, but she can't fuss about it now. What's done is done.

"Pretty deep," this guy replies. She hears the _for a girl from One_ he kept to himself and fights to keep her mouth from frowning.

Instead she smiles, big and fake, because even in her inebriated state she knows when she's being made fun of, and she returns, "To be honest, I'm just thinking about this bread."

"It's good," he says, "the best in all the districts."

"I personally think Four has the best," Massie disagrees, "with the seaweed and the salt. It's very good."

"Right." His gaze flickers from her to the table Derrick is at. Massie won't move her head to see, but she's certain he, Derrick, is staring at her. He's been doing that all night, since they separated, as often as he can. She can always tell when he's looking at her; the hair on the back of her neck stands on end without fail. "I forgot you had a soft spot for Four."

Massie rips apart another piece of bread. Crumbs fly all over the place: her lap, her plate, the centerpiece of (dying?) flowers (what?). This gives her time for contemplation, but there is nothing to contemplate, not really, and when she swallows, she merely asks, "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't," he responds smoothly. His finger fiddles with his wine glass, filled the same as hers, though the color is more pink than red. "I'm Danny Robbins."

"You're far from home," she notes.

He smiles again, all teeth. It looks more menacing than it ought to be. "I like it in Two."

"What's in Two that you like?" She fakes a cough so she can grab her napkin and looks over at Derrick quickly.

He's deep in a conversation with some woman, a blonde bombshell of a person, and Massie swallows back her irritation at it, her jealousy, and catches Cam's eye instead. Her own widen, but she's not sure he can see that, not sure if she's conveying anything other than overindulgence and annoyance. Derrick has always been able to figure her body language out; partnering up in the Games does that to people. Makes them easy to read.

"What's not to like?" Danny reels her back in.

Massie dabs at her mouth. Says, "Honestly? Everything."

Danny throws his head back as he laughs, like she's said something so humorous he can't help it. It's the truth though, there's nothing here she likes. Two is not meant to be liked; Two is meant to be feared. That is the staunch difference between her district and this one. People visit One for entertainment, for fun. No one visits Two for reasons other than imprisonment.

(Two holds the jails, too, if your crimes warrant that. Massie knows most lives of criminals end in death, so the prisons here are unnecessary. Who knows what they are actually used for.)

"You're serious?"

"Of course," she replies. "Don't tell anyone, but I don't find mountains and caves appealing."

"You're more partial to the skyscrapers and artificial starlight of One, I presume."

"That and the jewels that line our streets." Massie quirks a smile, recalling her home, which she's missed, which she'll see in a few days. "They're paved with diamonds, did you know? Emeralds, too. We like things to sparkle in One."

Danny leans forward to tuck her hair behind her ear, much like Derrick did earlier. "You like your things to be pretty, too, I hear."

"Yeah." She takes her bottom lip between her teeth then lets go when she notices him staring. "Nothing is ugly at home."

When he pulls his hand away, spending far too long cupping her cheek, Massie feels itchy, like she wants to scrub at her face for hours to get his touch off her skin. There is a very obvious difference between the way he held her and Derrick did, and even though her conversation with the latter ended in disappointment, he at least never once touched her like she was property, his to own. She doesn't even know Danny Robbins, not really, and his fingers feel like he's claiming her.

There is a crash as she turns away from him, facing a plate full of chicken and vegetables she is positive she didn't ask for. She slices her knife through the meat, watches from beneath her lashes as someone hurries to clean the mess at Derrick's table. Shards of glass litter the plate in front of him, and his gaze is narrowed towards her—but she hasn't done anything. Has she? She still can't remember much of the conversation they had earlier, but she couldn't have… he'd kissed her, in front of everyone, something he should not have done, so surely—

But then Danny says something to her, and when she looks over at him, he's busy smirking at the boy several feet away from them, and she knows.

What she knows is not something she is tangibly aware of, but it is that sitting next to Danny Robbins is not accidental, nor is it safe, and there is nothing she can do about it.

Massie replies back, though she hears none of what comes out of her mouth, and signals for more wine. She is certain that it is the only way she will make it out of whatever this is in one piece.

"Are you getting the same thing you had before?" Danny asks. His voice rings in her ears, louder than before. He's moved closer to her. "The merlot?"

"Uh," is Massie's eloquent response.

He shoves his glass over, the one full of pink, sparkly liquid, and insists she try it. "It's rosé. Two has the best rosé."

"One of the reasons you're here all the time?" quips Massie.

"One of the many, yes."

Massie is certain Two does not have the best rosé. Is certain they don't even make wine here. There are no vineyards here, no means to farm, no fertile land. She is _positive_ they buy this from, like, Ten, or Eleven, or wherever else that is not here.

She tastes it, though, because he may be right, just wrong about where it's from, and she _has_ been drinking too much of this merlot. It reminds her of blood, so she should branch out.

"Oh," she exclaims. "It is good!"

"Told you." Danny looks smug, like he made it himself. "You finish that. I'll get another for myself."

"No, that's not…" _Necessary_ , she thinks feebly, but he doesn't hear it, busy ordering another glass for himself—and another for her, it turns out, when the waiter comes back.

"Thanks," Massie squeaks. "You didn't have to."

Danny's only response is a shrug and then he's focusing on his food.

Massie swallows a particularly large mouthful and blatantly turns her face to look for someone she knows. What she finds is empty seats; Alicia, Cam, and Derrick are gone, and she is surrounded by strangers, most of them people who hate her on principle.

Across from her, behind everyone else, the wall of skulls grin wildly at her, like they're in on a secret.

 **…**

The room is spinning.

The room is spinning, and she should go to bed now because she's had too many glasses of wine—which is her own fault, it always is—and the only thing she needs now is sleep or more food. She thinks she'll vomit if more food is involved, so she says her goodbyes to her tablemates, most of which she did not interact with at all, and exits the room.

And the hallway… the hallway is upside down, she's convinced.

Massie's palm slams against the wall as she forces herself to right the world, to take the floor off the ceiling and the ceiling off the floor. With careful consideration, it flips, but the overwhelming urge to vomit takes over and she breathes in deep, losing it. She's no longer right side up, which doesn't matter, not really; all she needs to be is on the third floor, where her room is. If she can just get there, regardless of what it all looks like…

She knows somewhere around here, she'll be able to find Cam and Derrick and Alicia. They're here, she's seen them, she's touched them, and all she wants is for one of them to be near her. To take care of her. She's never really wanted that before, but she feels so awful and out of whack. She's never been gladder that the parties the districts throw for her are not televised. If they were, she'd be the laughing stock of the country by now.

 _In, out_ , she tells herself. _In, out. In… out…_

Her head feels less full and her limbs are hers to control again, so she takes a tentative step forward.

Not going to fall. A good sign.

She steps again.

She makes it up one flight of stairs before the world feels like it's closing in on her. The air is hard to breathe. The light is too bright. It's not even that far, just a few more steps and she'll be on the right floor; she'll be able to go to sleep…

Her heart hammers in her chest like something is wrong, like something bad is going to happen. Massie takes a breath, then another, then another, and tries to calm herself down. She can't. She doesn't like it here, so she can't find a reason to keep herself from panicking.

 _In, out_ , she reminds herself. _In, out. You're fine._

Another voice cuts through her thoughts, one she just recently dreamt about but hasn't heard in months. Kemp hisses, _No, you're not. Turn left now_ like it's an order. She is so startled by it, by the arrival of one of her hallucinations, that she listens, ducking into an dark alcove.

It smells like cleaning products here, like bleach and water and pine. Massie sniffs, releases, and sniffs again, her hands in fists at her side. The hall beyond in the fluorescent light twists and flips and distorts, and she is glad she listened to her conscience this time around instead of continuing on. It may have sounded like Kemp, but it knew she was going to fall over and gave her the option to wait it out.

This is the last time she drinks, she decides. This is not worth it, even if it made the dinner more bearable. She'd rather deal with embarrassment and ridicule head on than have to fight herself.

After what feels like a lifetime, Massie moves again.

The floor is where it is supposed to be, but the lights are very bright. Too bright, actually, and she closes her eyes for a moment, trying to right herself. When she opens them again, she's met with two of the same hallway, the alcohol skewing her vision, and she lets out a whimper.

She just wants to _go home_ , even if home is far away and she's really talking about a hotel bed. She just wants to be _there_ , not _here_ , but she's fucked herself over and she's stuck in a hallway, not knowing what floor she's on. She could be right outside her room and she wouldn't even know! She's just stupid and dizzy and upset and now she's on the floor because she decided the best course of action was to slide down the wall and _cry_ about how dumb she is—

And now her shoes are annoying. They're too tight and too tall and she wants them off. Massie leans forward and fumbles with the clasp, fingers too bulky and uncoordinated to remove her shoes, and she's hyper aware of them, of how they feel, of the discomfort, and she wants them off off _OFF_.

Massie kicks out, annoyed with herself, and pulls her foot against the carpet over and over, trying to dislodge the strap in any way she can. Her feet _hurt_. Please. Please. Please.

"Hey," a voice she recognizes says. It's loud. Or maybe it isn't and she's used to the silence that surrounds her. Who knows. "Stop. Let me help you."

She does. Stop, that is, and her foot is picked up by tanned hands, the clasp of her heel undone on one shoe and then the other. With both heels off, she feels free, feels comfortable, feels less like the world is going to collapse on her, and she sighs.

"Thank you," she wants to say, but the words are stuck in her throat. She merely mumbles something that is supposed to convey gratitude, and lets her savior help her up off the floor.

The hands that bring her upright are warm and calloused to the touch. Once they have her leaning against the wall, they duck down to get her shoes and then they're touching her again, but they're touching her in all the wrong places. She might need them to hold her arms or her waist or whatever will keep her from falling over, but she doesn't need them to tug at her hair or run their fingers down her throat or pull at her top until the sleeves of her dress are down to her elbows.

 _Kick him_ , the voice in her head says.

 _Kick him_ , Kemp says. _Kick him and run._

Massie feels the pads of his fingers against her hot skin and can't. She _can't_.

 _You can_ , Kemp snaps. _I've never known a version of you that couldn't defend yourself. Fight it_.

He doesn't understand, though. Doesn't understand that she can't move, can't move, can't move, is stuck. In her mind, she reaches out to grab her assailant, reaches to break fingers so she can flee, but her arms are stuck at her sides, helpless. No matter how hard she forces her mind to work, she is somehow disconnected.

He laughs, this person, as if he can see her struggle. "It's funny," he says, which she knows, because he is laughing at her. "They claimed it would be harder than this, but you're not as tough as you make yourself out to be, are you? You're just a little girl who can't do anything."

 _You are not_ , Kemp hisses. _You can get out of this. Massie, focus. You can_ —

But there are fingers where they are not supposed to be because she never invited them there, and her skirts are being pulled up, and she thinks she may hear a zipper being pulled, and the rustling of fabric as it falls, and she feels something she shouldn't feel, and she's not sure why, and… and… and…

 _You are not as weak as he says you are. You are **better**_ **.**

Better. Better. Better.

Something fills her. It's hot and uncontrollable and Massie reacts immediately, leaning forward and digging her teeth into the open flesh of neck. He yelps, the man before her, and Massie is able to pick her hands up, though the action seems hard, her wrists heavy, and shove him back. She may not be strong enough to get him fully away from her, but she has enough power to make him stagger back, and then she's running.

She's running with her dress half off, with her skirts ripped, with her feet bare.

She's running with the ceiling on the floor and the floor on the ceiling.

She's running with two staircases in front of her, her vision blurred.

She's running and she hopes what she picks is real, and she's climbing stair after stair after stair, somehow knowing the next floor is where she wants to be. Is safe.

Massie makes it to the third floor, heart racing, hands shaking, mind a whole mess, when she realizes she doesn't remember her room number.

She doesn't remember her room number and whoever was downstairs is most certainly behind her and she is alone—all of her friends are unaccounted for, doing something else, doing some _one_ else—so all she can do is pray the numbers that come to mind are the ones she needs.

 _Trust me_ , Kemp says to her, like he did in her dream. _Trust me. Seven down and on the left._

And only because she used to trust him in real life, you know, before he went crazy, Massie stumbles down the hall, counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six—

She can see the seventh door. She can _see it_ , but she's too slow to get to it.

Arms wrap around her waist, pulling her back, and she falls.

She falls, but she screams as she does it, because he may think she's weak, but she's not. She _is_ as tough as they say she is, and sometimes being tough means being as loud as you can be. It means getting someone else's attention when you can't protect yourself.

So she yells as she tumbles backwards, and she yells as he fights her, because she can get her limbs to work this time around. He shouts when her foot connects with his cheek, and she screeches when he tries to cover her mouth, and even with blood over his lips, this man manages to smile.

Massie kicks out again, but he dodges, and he pins her knees down with his own, hovering over her.

"This could have been easy, you know," he tells her. "You could've stayed downstairs and I could've escorted you back to your room. I could have helped you get to bed like the gentleman I am"—here Massie laughs because she know she is anything but and he whacks her face with the back of his hand— "but you had to make things difficult, so I have to, too. And what a shame it is." He smooths her hair back, fingers dancing across her cheekbone, her neck, her cleavage. "You're so pretty and you wore the dress and it's such a waste to kill someone as beautiful as you. But it's what I mu—"

She had felt the footsteps earlier, vibrations on the carpeted floor, but she'd thought she'd imagined them because she'd been imagining a lot of things recently and didn't want to get her hopes up.

But here they are, the legs that made the footsteps, and there her attacker goes, tackled to the ground several feet away from her.

Massie takes a deep breath, pushes herself to her elbows, then her hands, and crawls backwards as fast she can. She doesn't know if the owner of those feet is nice, doesn't know if she'll make it out of here unscathed (if she can call herself unscathed right now), so she's not taking any chances. She'll find a place to hide, she will, she just needs to _get back up, Massie, get up get up get up!_

She bumps into something solid, but not a wall. There are knees at the back of her head and a shoe beneath her hand. It shines in the light.

For one moment, Massie feels her heart in her throat. Dread crashes over her—of course he has an accomplice, it's so dumb to do things alone—and she succumbs to it, to what she knows is about it happen but refuses to acknowledge. They're not going to just kill her. They're going to play with her first, these people who hate her.

But then—

Cam squats down beside her and pulls her sleeves back up, his touch soft and familiar and gentle. He buttons the back of her top so she is secure in it and runs his fingers through her hair, undoing the braids Joyce had put in them. She feels the weight of it on her back and feels safer with the waves covering her skin. She's never been gladder for Cam or for the length of her hair before.

It's warm and smells of chocolate, her hair, which has always been a calming scent to her. Massie breathes in deep, burying her nose in it, and counts back from twenty because Kemp tells her to.

Her eyes open again to a hallway that is easier for her to see. She's not as dizzy as she was before and with Cam's hands on her shoulders, she feels like maybe she can make it out of this district in one piece. His thumb has tucked itself in one of the holes that's been ripped into the back of her lace top. He rubs at her skin absently. Massie breathes in time with it.

 _Drugged_ , Kemp tells her. She blinks, thinks she can see him in front of her, dark skin and light eyes—she thinks; she doesn't remember what he looks like—and he is peering at her with a careful intensity, checking her for any other apparent injuries. _Danny Robbins drugged you. You shouldn't have taken wine from him._ Kemp glances behind her, at Cam, who definitely does not know he's here with her, but goes rigid at something. _They shouldn't have left you alone. They know better than to do that here. You cannot trust Two. I told you that._

"I don't," Massie answers. She's not sure if she said it out loud or not.

Kemp shakes his head. _Be careful. You don't get to die yet, Massie. I will be very mad if you do._

She nods. "Sorry."

 _Don't apologize for this. It's not your fault_ , Kemp replies. _Just get out of here and help those two idiots clean up their mess. You can do this. You're important. You've always been important._

He fades away, and Massie wishes she had a chance to touch him, to hold his hand, to recall what he used to feel like, but it's useless. It's useless to think fondly of him too because he tried to own her, tried to kill her, but she does. He was a boy once, as innocent as one can be in a Career district. He was a boy once, and she loved him with as much of her heart as she could give.

 _I miss you_ , she thinks. She shouldn't, but she does.

A part of her swears she hears him say it back though that is not right. Kemp Hurley would never miss her unless he had something to gain from it.

Cam is laughing when she comes back to reality. No, Cam is _cackling._ The sound is grating. Too loud and too boisterous. Massie has a headache.

"That was in poor taste," he says, and his voice is harder than she remembers. Sharp like a blade, even with the laugh in it. "Did you have to?"

Derrick's legs enter her line of vision. She doesn't see past his knees, still staring forward at the spot in front of her. His voice, though, she hears it with her whole body. Unlike Cam's, it's exactly the same. She just doesn't understand the words he's saying.

"He talks too much." It's so casual, even though the air around them is anything but. It's tense. It's building up. "I did the world a service."

Her brother snorts again. His fingers run through her hair again, massaging his knuckles into her scalp. "Not sure what we're supposed to do with the body though."

 _Body_? What body?

Massie's head comes to attention, neck snapping as she looks up and around. Avoiding Derrick's gaze seems imperative at this point, so she glances around him at the figure down the hall.

Derrick must've been the one to tackle him, Danny Robbins, when Massie was able to get away. He got him pretty far from her, almost halfway to the other side of the hall, and now he lays there, unnaturally still, like a pile of human parts with no purpose.

Body.

She understands now.

Her eyes shift to his. She's overwhelmed by the emotion she sees there—not that she's not used to how expressive he can be, but by the sheer number of things he's feeling. He's always been the most open out of the two of them, that's what makes him so likable, but now… now he's an open book, laying everything bare for her (and Cam, she guesses, who is still talking to him).

It makes her take in a deep, shuddering breath, the kind that digs down down down into the stomach and comes back up. With it comes another urge to throw up, to cleanse herself. She fights it. She fights it and reads everything Derrick is allowing her to see.

He says to Cam: "We can move it to our room for the time being. It's where he wanted to be anyway."

He says to Massie: I should have never left you alone. I should have ditched that woman. I am angry. I am scared. I never want to be without you. I love you. I killed that guy for you. Don't leave me again. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did he—?

All Massie can do now is blink in response. She doesn't know the answer to his questions. She doesn't even really know what happened.

 _Yes, you do_ , she thinks, and it's in her own voice this time. Kemp is long gone. _Danny Robbins did this. You knew he was going to. He made you uncomfortable this whole night. You know what happened._

"I'm fine," she says. It's the first thing she's said in what feels like hours. It's also a lie.

Derrick's eyes narrow. Cam knocks his knee into her back. It's only then that she realizes she's shaking.

"You're bleeding," her—her… boyfriend sounds too silly for what Derrick is to her—he says this though, tells her what's going on with her body.

Massie frowns. Lifts her hand, touches the spot on her face that kind of aches, and sees that her fingers come back red. She _is_ bleeding. Odd. She rubs the liquid between her thumb and her index. It's sticky, kind of tacky.

"I guess I am," she notes.

"Did you hit your head hard?"

She shrugs. "Dunno."

"You don't know?"

"I don't know much of anything that happened today," Massie answers, just as sharp as his words are. "But I _do_ know you killed him. That's what you did, right?"

There is a beat of heavy silence; Derrick's gaze slides from hers to Cam's above her. They share a look boys often do, things unspoken being shared between them with just a facial expression. She can't read it from down here, but she doesn't think she'd be able to if she were standing either. There are some things she is not privy to.

Finally, Derrick replies, "I had to."

"You had to," she repeats dully. "You didn't _have_ to do anything."

His cheeks color drastically then, the hue of extreme sunburn. His jaw clenches, unclenches. Clenches again. "You didn't see what I saw," he says, voice soft. It's barely a whisper, but Massie hears it like he's screaming.

Despite that, despite the horror he clearly feels, Massie lifts her chin and retorts evenly, "And what is it you saw?"

His answer is swift, like he's been waiting for this: "Every one of my nightmares come to life."

"I don't think that warrants killing a person," Massie hisses. It's lackluster at best, a poor attempt to keep control. "We're not _savages_ , Derrick, we're not still in the arena, we don't just _kill people_ —"

"We do if they're trying to kill you," he snaps. "I won't stand by and just… just let it run its course, if that's what you're implying. I know where we are."

"Sure, but you _killed_ him," Massie emphasizes. "You just… you murdered him! I'm sure you could have, I don't know, not done that?"

"I know what I did," he grounds out. "I don't regret what I did. In fact, I kind of hope he didn't really die so I can have the satisfaction of breaking his neck a second time."

It's really unfair that Massie is so fucking fascinated with his hands. Even as she's mad at him, her eyes move on their own volition, staring at the size of his palms, the length of his fingers, the veins that run along them. And just to be a little shit, because he knows this about her, he cracks them, the fingers. He balls them into fists, lets go, basically puts on a whole show for her.

They're so strong. So capable. She knows what those hands can do: cruelly and gently.

Massie takes a deep breath, traces the lines of his shirt, stained with blood along the collar, a button missing, three from the top. There is a nasty clump of broken blood vessels on the side of his neck, kind of like a claw mark, like Danny Robbins tried to dig his fingers in there and pull. He is a whole mess, disheveled and dirty, but when she looks at his face again, he is doing nothing but staring at her like he always does. Like he is in love with her.

She remembers he kissed her in front of everyone tonight. That couldn't have gone over well.

The fire sufficiently stamped out of her, Massie sags against Cam's legs. She feels him brace himself to hold her up and she forces all her weight into her palms, pressed into the carpet. It's just another dead body. Just another murder under the belts. It can't make them any worse than they already are, can it?

"How are we supposed to explain it though?" she asks.

Derrick's facial expression slackens. Smooths out. He doesn't look happy, per se, but he does look relieved she's no longer snapping at him.

He answers, "They did send him after you. Anything could happen while he tried to—to—"

His voice cracks and tapers off, so Cam jumps in with a quick, "We're in _Two_. Any awful sort of thing could happen here. It wouldn't be surprising."

"No," agrees Massie. She's tired now. Exhausted, more like. "But if we keep this up, we won't need to come up with a story, they'll already know it was us."

"Not us," Derrick interjects. "Me."

Massie forces herself to her feet, a little wobbly as she comes up. Her head swims for a total of four seconds. "You're stupid if you think I'd let them separate us again. _Us_." She flips her hair over her shoulder. "Come on, lets get him inside."

"Are you good to walk?"

"Of course I'm good to walk. Come _on_. The party will be ending soon. We have to move."


	15. Part Fifteen: Home

**_Massie should finally stop being the absolute worst after this, if her character doesn't change her mind on me like everyone else's did._**

 ** _I've also finally found inspiration for Scar Tissue, so if anyone is still interested in that story, there should be an update in the next month!_**

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
_ _Part Fifteen_

* * *

 **home | hōm  
** noun  
 _the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or householda  
_ synonyms: place of residence, property, address, location, place, pad, digs, abode, dwelling

* * *

Massie wakes in a cold sweat, hair sticking to her forehead, aches in her joints, in her limbs, in her blood.

Her head aches. Her eyes are tired. Her tongue is heavy and dry.

When she shifts, her body feels like it weighs an extra fifty pounds, and she has to brace herself for the movement. Her knees hit something first – hard, muscled flesh – and then her face is burrowed in a back that smells so familiar and so safe that she's shoving her nose further into the skin between shoulders, breathing deep.

It is here and now she realizes the severity and pain of her situation.

Her heart stutters against Derrick's body, her arms wrapping around him, and she allows herself to cry, remembering, thinking she is alone.

But Derrick has never slept, thoughts running away from him, reminding him of his greatest fears, of everything he loves and could lose, and he twists, forehead now pressed against forehead.

Massie shuts her eyes, shuddering, and pretends he is not looking at her the way he is. Pretends he is not looking at her at all.

Because she remembers everything. Remembers how she'd fallen to the ideals of a district, to the fears that hold her heart, to the actions of a man tasked to hurt her. And hurt she does, because he managed to do enough to wound her, and she twinges in pain – in her head, where she's been cut, to her stomach and all that is lower, where she's been forcibly touched. A part of her has kept these memories from her as she recovers from the drug in her wine, given to her by a Capitol boy with no qualms, giving her the option to cope, but coping has never been one of her strong suits, even now.

Massie hiccups, horrified, and squeezes her eyes shut.

"Hi," Derrick whispers. "Are you – is it you?"

"Yes," Massie returns, just as quiet. "Oh my god, Derrick, I – "

"Don't worry about it," he murmurs, grabbing her face with his hands. "It's… it wasn't… as long as you're alright…"

"I almost wasn't," she retorts, trying to wriggle away from him despite her desire to be close. "I – I'm the _worst_ , and yet you're still here, even though I could have killed myself – "

He doesn't let her escape to the other side of her bed, wrapping his foot around her calf. "You don't get to do this," he mutters. "You don't get to act like you're the only person whose done anything wrong – "

"You've never," Massie starts.

"I _have_ ," Derrick interrupts, and his face is so close, his nose against hers.

"Not because you ever wanted to," she argues. "They've made you do those things. No one's ever made me do anything, and all I ever do is – "

" _Stop_." Derrick's order is fierce and it makes her pause. "We all have our faults."

"But I should know better," Massie snaps, as a person who is embarrassed by their most current transgression and will probably do it again once she is over it. "I'm _afraid_. I'm afraid of everything and I just want to go _home_ , but I can't. There is no home for me anymore, not even with you."

He opens his mouth, but she shakes her head. "You said it," she recalls, bitterness on her tongue. "You wished you could spend the rest of your life with me, but you can't. There is no world where we can be together, is there?" His silence is louder than anything she's ever imagined, even screaming. "I don't know what's expected of me."

"I want to," Derrick breathes. "I want to be with you forever. I've never loved anyone like I love you. You're… you're _it_ for me, regardless of what happens. They can" – his voice cracks – "they can take everything from me, but they can't take that."

"I don't deserve it," Massie says. "I can't even choose who I want to be. I put us all on the line with every decision I make, and –" She breaks off, sniffing, trying to pull away, but he only holds her closer. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to ignore him, but with his warmth against her, she is undone. She sees him as he is, right then, hair mussed from restlessness, bags beneath his eyes, eyes which shine with worry – for her. "I love you," she whispers, a hand reaching up to touch his cheek. "You shouldn't love me."

He kisses her, as definitively as he did before, even if it was small and slightly hesitant. "I've loved every version of you I've known," he tells her. "All of them. As long as you're in there, I'll love you, even if you are trying to kill me."

Massie breathes in deep and shakily, fingers digging into his shoulders. "You shouldn't," she replies. "I love you, but you shouldn't. You're so much better than I am, so much better without me. I'm only dragging you down. I'm… you _murdered_ for me, and I… was it worth it, doing that?"

There is no hesitation – _zero_ – when Derrick says, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I know who you let everyone see is not who you are, and most of the world knows that, too," Derrick says. "You just have to stop being so scared. You told me you weren't before, but you were lying, and I know that, but if you just stopped worrying about everyone and everything, you could be that person."

"What person?"

"The person who loved a twelve year old girl in a Game that demands selfishness. The person who loves _me_ even though she's not supposed to." Derrick tucks her hair behind her ear, uses his leg to pull her closer to him. "Let go of who they made," he whispers. "Embrace who you are. I know who that is. I love that person. You don't let her out enough."

"I don't know – "

"You _do_ ," he interrupts as if he knows what she's trying to say, and maybe he does. "It's not often, but it's more so than before, and I want to save her, if only because she wants to save me."

Massie surges forward, presses her face against his. "I always want to save you," she admits.

"And I always want to save you," he replies. "You have to give yourself more credit. You are not who they made you to be, Massie, and you have always known that, but you let yourself fall back into it because it's easy. Life isn't supposed to be easy." Voice lowered, he adds, " _Rebellion_ isn't supposed to be easy. I know you don't like how they painted you, and I know you don't want it, but you don't have to fight it so much. Pick a side and stick to it."

"It's hard," Massie murmurs. "My brain… it goes both ways all the time. I try to pretend like it didn't affect me, like I can fight it, but I can't. It depends on the day, on my mood, on my strength. What they did to me – it's stronger than I like to admit. I'm me now, I'm _yours_ now, but in ten minutes – in twenty minutes – I can be theirs." She sniffs, closing her eyes to him. "I think that's why I hallucinate so much. I think they _want_ that. The crazier I am, the less likely everyone else is to believe me…"

"Why did it take you so long to tell me that?" asks Derrick. "It's been months since you've been released from the hospital."

Massie clenches a fist to her side, nails digging into her thigh. The pain reminds her of how serious the situation is, even as she wallows in emotion. "You saw how I was in the Capitol, when I saw you again," she says. "I don't feel like killing you outright, but I can't control a lot of my thoughts. I'm that girl at the end of the Games maybe twenty percent of the time. The rest is me trying to fight what they did so I can stay that way. I don't… I don't have control a lot of them time. Nate says he knows what they did to me because he was there when it happened, but he can't do anything about it until I survive this tour."

 _Survive_ being the operative word here, seeing as she almost fucking died several hours ago. It is no secret someone is trying to kill her, to make sure she doesn't end up at the Capitol at the end of the season.

And given what she's done to the president, she's not surprised he's sent his crony's son after her. Vice President Robbins does whatever Myner asks, even if it makes no sense, that's what her father always said. Sending Danny after her is something he'd agree to, if only to prove he is the most loyal. Unfortunately for him, his son is dead and Massie is only plagued with nightmares and phantom touches.

"You're stronger than that," Derrick tells her, like he's been in her brain, like he knows what she's facing. She's never had to try so hard before and he doesn't seem to get that. Maybe what he's facing is easier compared to this. It might be, the selling of body parts and sexual acts; at least he can turn off his brain as it happens. "I've seen it. You don't believe in yourself enough."

Even as he says that, her head hurts. Hurts like it wants to break out of her skull.

"Maybe I don't, but I don't think the possibility that I will is worth riding on," Massie says.

"It is. You _are_ ," Derrick insists. "How many times do I have to tell you? I _love_ you. I defied the rules of the Games for you. I tried to _die_ for you. Everything I do is for you, and you once told me everything you do is for me." He presses his mouth to hers, forceful even as she does not reciprocate. His fingers dig into the scalp above her ears. "I'm glad that you told me the truth, but if you thought it would make me abandon you, you're sorely mistaken. Even if you spend the next three nights trying to kill me I'll stay by your side. I'll try to help you. _I love you_." He's said it so many times it sounds like it shouldn't be real anymore, the words, but she can see in his face that they are. It's the one thing she knows is true, even when she's not herself, even when it's not good for him. She saw it in his face earlier, though she doesn't remember what she said that upset him; he still loved her then. "I will spend the rest of my life loving you, even if you don't feel the same. You're it for me. You've been it for me since that day in the arena, when you cried over the wound I got that surely would have benefited you. Earlier, even." He smacks his lips together, like he's just realized something interesting. "I think I was born to love you," he says slowly, like it's just occurred to him. "I know the girl I knew is in you somewhere and I know she'll come out on top. You just need to believe in yourself the way I believe in you."

 _I don't_ , she thinks.

She's working with borrowed time; she's known that this whole time. It's been hanging over her head since the start of this tour, this journey around the districts that makes no sense. It's a formality at best, a way to appease the rebels and prove the president listens to his people, but the second she steps off this train, tries to settle… She'll be disposed of, she knows it. There's no point in trying to believe in herself, in fighting the tugs of her old personality, of the personality they carved out for her.

She's done for and maybe she should be spending what little time she has left doing the things she enjoys, but she's _tired_.

"Alright," she decides to say. It's hollow.

Her back to him, Massie sighs, staring blankly at the wall. She should be glad she's here with Derrick, that he's beside her right now and no one else, but she can only think about every single one of her shortcomings – and the fact that he's no doubt offended the general's wife by flaking on her.

Derrick shifts, a finger running down the length of her spine. She'd been rid of her dress long ago, opting to stay only in her underthings, and his touch sets her skin on fire. Goosebumps dot the expanse of her back, traveling up her arms.

She doesn't say anything. Doesn't react more than her body's unconscious behavior.

He is not so easily deterred, moving even closer that it feels like he is a second skin. He buries his face in her neck and the hair that's been tied there, mouth pressing tiny kisses – ghosts of the real thing – along the line of her shoulder. "Are you mad at me?"

Massie reaches behind her to take his hand, link their fingers, and squeezes. "No."

Derrick slips his leg between hers, pressing his stomach to her lower back. "It's okay," he tells her softly. "You're okay. What happened today… it happens to all of us. There is nothing wrong with – "

"Stop," she requests, not unkindly. Her head hurts and she is tired. She does not want to be comforted while she wallows.

He listens. "Relax," he advises. "Tomorrow is another day."

 **…**

 _She's in the dress again – white, pristine, bridal – but now she knows it was not gifted to her by Derrick, but rather…_

 _Her skirt's ripped right down the side, artfully torn, showing off the length of her leg, the muscle of her thigh. Danny Robbins' hand had been there, brushing along the skin, creeping up up up –_

 _Now he's over there, though, across the hall, and all Massie has is awful memories and the feel of his fingers on her legs, her hips, her stomach. He isn't touching her, he's not, but she_ feels _it like he is. It makes her feel dirty, body shuddering, eyes playing tricks on her._

 _Her name is called. She looks up, away from the hands she has convinced herself are still there when they aren't, and meets the bright blue eyes of Danny Robbins, who is –_

 _He's closer than she remembers. Wasn't he just over there?_

 _Massie cranes her neck behind him, trying to see. He can't be here. He's there, where Derrick is, because Derrick has saved her, saved her like he always does._

 _But he hasn't._

 _"Thank you," Danny says gratefully, and her face is in her hands. "I knew you'd prove them wrong."_

 _She is confused, and she doesn't want him to touch her like this, but he seems to think she is fine with it. She is not. Please let go. Please let go and explain why he's acting like they're friends, like she wants his company. Please explain why Derrick is not moving over there. He's never not – he's always doing_ something _._

 _"Who?" she manages to ask._

 _"I bet on you," Danny says. "I bought you this dress, and I talked to you at dinner, and I followed you here all the while hoping you'd do as I suggested."_

 _Massie blinks. His face comes into focus, incredibly symmetrical and awfully unnerving. "I didn't do anything," she replies._

 _"You didn't? Massie, you killed them!" Danny is ecstatic. "I always knew you'd side with the Capitol. They told me you'd be hard to convince, that I'd need to frighten you into it, maybe even – " He shakes his head. "Of course, I wouldn't, I'm not that kind of person, but… I saw it in you. I know you don't care for the rebellion. I know you are sympathetic to the president, how can you not be? He's your godfather. Your father is – "_

 _She knows who her father is. She cuts him off, stomach settling somewhere near her knees, uncomfortable. "Derrick, he's – "_

 _"Dead."_

 _Four letters, one syllable: the worst word she's ever heard. Massie mouths it back to him, stunned, uncomprehensive. Dead. Derrick. Dead Derrick. Derrick is dead?_

 _"Who killed him?"_

 _Danny laughs, chuffing her chin like she's five and endearing, not whatever she is now. "I just said so, Massie," he says, warm. "You did."_

 _"I did?"_

 _He nods._

 _"No, I didn't."_

 _"Yes." He drops her face. "You did. "_

 _Massie feels her heart do some weird somersault, panic surging through her bloodstream. "No, I couldn't have. I don't… why would I?"_

 _"Look at your hands," he orders. "One of you had to die. You made sure it wasn't you. The better choice, if I'm being honest."_

 _She hears him, but barely, lifting her hands to inspect. They're covered in blood, red and sticky and warm. They smell of copper when she brings them to her nose; the scent settles on her tongue. Massie smacks her lips, trying to remove it from her mouth._

 _"It's always going to be you or him, Massie," Danny Robbins, the Vice President's son, tells her. "Surely you've always known that. Only one of you can win. Didn't you want it to be you?"_

 **…**

Massie wakes again, gasping, and, remembering where she is, flails her arms, searching.

The space next to her, where she last remembers Derrick being, pressed up against her, is empty. It is not even warm, like his body had been there.

She wrenches her eyes open, sitting up so fast her head spins, and blinks against the brightness of the sun streaming through the windows. She is still in the hotel room. The sheets are soft, a pale shade of red; her toes wriggle against them.

How is she alone? She can't be alone. She isn't –

There's a chance she's panicking – _did she kill him? She killed him, didn't she? She_ is _a whole monster, there is no doubt about it_ – and her entire body feels warm. No, not warm. Hot. She's hot, too hot, and she's alone, because she _did_ kill Derrick, she finally did, she finally gave into it, and –

Curled into a ball at the very edge of the mattress, a million miles between them, Massie sees an unruly head of golden curls.

Her blood pressure lowers, heartbeat slowing so it is less of a weapon against her ribcage. She presses a hand to her chest as she stares at him, feels herself calm down. Her lips, though, they taste like blood as she licks them, dry from sleep, just like they did in her dream.

The reminder of it makes her nauseous.

She shortens the distance between them until she is tugging at the sheets Derrick has inevitably stolen, unwrapping him like a present until she can press her cold toes to his legs. He lets out a half-strangled sound, still asleep, and blindly gropes for her, looping an arm around her waist and flipping himself over to pull her flush against his chest.

"S'annoying," he mumbles into her hair.

Massie can feel the rise and fall of his chest, can hear the breaths he takes, but she still can't fight the unease that washes over her. "Stole all the sheets," she tells him.

"Was cold."

She is touch-touch-touching him, splaying her hand here and there and everywhere – his bicep, his thigh, his face. Sturdy. Full. Present.

"Can you wait until I'm awake?" he asks, voice stronger than before. She's effectively roused him from his slumber or is at least starting to. "I like to enjoy these things with you, believe it or not."

 _I'm not trying to do that_ , she knows she should say, but her mouth quirks into a tiny smile instead and her movements slow - not to a stop, but to a deliberate pace meant to force him awake faster.

He's alive. She has not caused him harm, not made him bleed; she can feel just how alive he is in the kisses he presses along the column of her throat, the angle of her cheekbone. When he gets to her mouth, he replaces the blood taste with one of his own, lazy with drowsiness and sweet like summer.

It's a slow, timid affair, nothing too hot or hurried, though his touch burns through her. She shivers against him, leg thrown carelessly over his shoulder as he drops lower, burying his head between her thighs. Her underwear is elsewhere, she doesn't recall; he licks up her stomach, presses his mouth to the underside of her jaw, and nips at her nose.

Her hands run through his hair, maybe a bit harsher than need be but Derrick doesn't mention it, just lays his head at her neck, wrapping his body around her like he is smaller than she is. When she reaches down to return the favor, he bats her away, sighing against her sweat-soaked skin.

"But," she argues.

"Don't need to," he murmurs. "Like doing it to you."

"I don't want you to think I'm - " _What's the word?_ " - using - "

His teeth close around her collarbone, silencing her. "I know you're not," he says. "S'different with you. Always has been. Surprised you wanted that, after yesterday."

Massie's eyes seek out at a clock, the sunlight from the window doing little to tell her the time of day. She's rusty on reading the sky anyway, now that she's not tested on it or using it to survive. She watches it after her search comes up fruitless, the light - it makes every part of Derrick sparkle, like he's made of it himself. Like he's the ocean, lazing away in the midday summer sun.

"Wanted to make sure you were alive," she finally admits. It sounds dumb out loud and thank god he doesn't know how often she is worried over this. Worried over the nonexistent blood on her hands: _his_ blood.

It has to be a sign, does it not? His blood will spill, if she's thinking about it this much. It's bound to.

And if she's right, she'll be the one to do it. To kill him.

"I get like that sometimes," Derrick replies. "Just - especially after yesterday, I like that I can be here with you like this."

"I had a nightmare," Massie tells him. The words feel like they're ripped from her. She wants to tell him but she doesn't, because it makes her feel small and weak where she has always been big and strong. But maybe that's the point of it - maybe all the times she's told him things like this, her fears, her dreams, the things that make her cry - maybe all of that isn't weakness. Maybe it is. It can be both, and she's allowed to feel it. There is nothing wrong with it, nothing to be ashamed of. She needs to stop thinking there is.

She repeats herself, those four words, and then delves into it, delves too much into it, if she's honest. But she ignores the voice - her voice, hard and judgmental, a sixteen year old Trainee - that tells her she's giving too much of herself away.

Massie remembers being embarrassed when she watched her Games, when she saw all the moments of emotional weakness she'd shown. She was supposed to be stoic and cold, shining like a diamond. Sharp. That old feeling stings at her now, as she allows honesty to guide her.

She shoves it away.

It is silent between the two of them after she lays herself bare; to tide her over, because she's not used to this from him, Massie counts between breaths, gaze locked on the ceiling.

"I trust you," is all Derrick says, which -

That's all? She's told him _everything_ since she last saw him, and even the things she never got to tell him because of how he - they - acted in Four. Fears, realizations, hunches, inclinations… she's said it all, and all he can respond with is - _oh._

"I'm with you until the end of the line," he adds, almost as if he's merely thinking it to himself. His hand absently runs up and down her thigh. She watches it for a moment, two different skin tones, two different worlds, lives. Never meant to meet. "What are you thinking?"

She tells him.

 **…**

"I wasn't lying, you know," Massie whispers.

"I would hope not," Derrick replies, just as soft. "You've said a lot of things that would be questionable, traitorous, even, if you did."

"No." She squints up at him, at the pink of his lips and the glittering brown of his eyes. At the way his hair curls behind his ears and the freckles on his nose, but especially at the pair by the corner of his mouth, darker and bigger than the rest. He smiles at her, never as perturbed by her staring as she is about his. His front tooth is chipped, just a smidge. "About running away. I'd do it."

He blinks.

Blinks, and twists her hair in his fist, tugging her face up so he can kiss her, where his answer is plain to her.

Massie opens under his tongue and straddles him, her hair covering their faces and blocking the light. They've overstayed their welcome, that's for sure, but she doesn't find it in her to care, wasting even more time wrapped up in him.

 **…**

She slips into something she'd actually wear - a long, gauzy shirt she tucks into tiny floral shorts - and is somehow not surprised when she finds Derrick tailing her.

There's only one train in the station. Not unusual, but…

Cam is there, tapping his foot as if he's impatient, leaning against the side of the thing. Even from far off, Massie can see the exhaustion taking over though he makes a good show of it, hands in his pockets and eyes covered by dark glasses. When he sees them, he shoves them up his face into his hair and grins, throwing his hand out for Derrick to catch.

"I paid off the other driver," he says. "Your chariot awaits." Then, just to be a prick, he adds, "Oh, hi, Massie. Didn't see you there."

Massie grumbles, shouldering him as she passes, The sound of Derrick's laughter washes over her. She ducks back into this metal hellhole she's called home for six months. But tomorrow… _tomorrow_ … she'll be back where she belongs.

Her eyes take in all the rooms she's lounged in, she's complained in, she's cried in. The latter is not many and not often, but it's there. The couch she sat on when she saw Derrick on television for the first time since her hospitalization is right there in front of her. She can't wait to be rid of this place and the memories that plague her.

Still, her feet take her down the familiar path to her bedroom, except they don't. A hand, Derrick's hand, tugs at her sleeve, gathering her attention and thwarting her mission. She opens her mouth to deny him whatever it is he wants, which she is eighty percent sure she knows, because she's tired, but there is a look in his eye that keeps her mouth shut. This is not the face of a boy who wants to sleep with her.

"We need to talk," Derrick says. His voice seems to echo in the silence, bounce off the edges.

She blinks at his face, at his hand on arm, and nods.

Maybe he feels her pulse where he's holding her, maybe that's why he rubs his thumb against her wrist bone, slips his fingers between hers. It doesn't do anything to quell her anxiety though. She's - nervous about this, because despite it all, despite talking to him for what felt like hours and hours in that bed, she's still kind of…

She's not _afraid_ of them, no, but she is… She's wary. She has every right to be. They killed Danny Robbins right in front of her. They _laughed_. They aren't supposed to be like that anymore. That's the whole point, isn't it? They're supposed to turn it off. They're not supposed to… they're _more_ than murderers.

And she believes in him, she always has, always will. There's no one else she can believe in, if not him. Even in the arena he only ever did what he had to, and killing Danny, it wasn't - it was senseless. Unnecessary. Regardless of what he saw…

Massie looks at their hands, clasped together, and she doesn't want to let go. But she does, wiping her palm on her thigh.

"Don't worry," he murmurs because he can read her, because he knows her.

"Don't tell her that," Cam calls from the kitchen. "Worrying is good. It's healthy." A beat. "Don't tell me Will took all the whiskey with him when he left us here."

Finding her voice, she answers him, Cam, not Derrick. "Second cabinet from the left on the bottom."

"Maybe you shouldn't," Derrick says.

"I'm not," Massie replies. "I just know where it is."

She can hear the glasses being pulled from the shelves, the ice cubes as Cam adds them. He's making it like her dad does. She doesn't know why she knows this. Why she's decided it.

Will puts sugar at the bottom of his cup when he drinks whiskey straight. She thinks she hears the bowl being used and put away.

"What's this about?" she asks.

"What we learned in Two last night." Derrick scratches the back of his neck. "And what we need you to do."

Massie sniffs. "Is that why you're here?"

"I'm here because I want to be," he replies. "I could have gone back to Four, but it makes little sense if I'm to come back for your party in the Capitol."

"You don't have to see any of those girls that look like me again, do you?"

Derrick's face pales. He shakes his head, forcing his fists into the pockets of his pants. He looks good in these jeans, all dark and tight in the right places.

"Do you have to -"

"I always have to," he cuts her off, sharp. "I will never not have to, but as long as I make it to where I have to be and perform adequately it doesn't matter how I get there or what I do in between."

( _Hopefully._ )

He has no idea if that's true. Massie knows that. He knows that. He's toeing a line here, pushing at Myner's buttons. She's seen the president, her _godfather_ , get angry over something even smaller than this. If he's wrong…

She bites her lip, doesn't want to think about the negatives when the positives mean she gets to spend more time than she's allowed with him. And here she is, _again_ , wasting it on anger and trepidation.

 _She knows him._ He's not all the things her brain makes him out to be.

Her hand surges forward without a second thought, and she grasps his, squeezing tightly.

It is an apology, for the way she's acted the past two days. The past few months, really. He squeezes the skin between her thumb and pointer finger. _I'm sorry, too_ , it means. _It's okay._

It's not, but sure.

Massie lets him lead her into the sitting room, where three glasses of brown liquid await them. She ignores hers, taking one of the empty seats. Derrick catches her around the waist before she can, dropping down before her and depositing her on his lap.

"First thing's first," Cam announces like this is more of a fun gathering than what feels like a war council, tossing a paper at them. "Here's what you missed while you two had your extended lie-in. Vomit, by the way. Do I need to have a talk with you, Derrick?"

"Only if you want me to have a talk with Josh," Derrick retorts easily, carelessly.

The comment flies right over Massie's head, her attention on the headline. Their ruse worked, it seems, and she can't believe it was that easy.

 _Party boy Daniel Robbins found dead in District Two._

She skims the article, unable to read the whole thing. Words like _alleyway_ and _imported wine made from fruits in Eleven_ and _fall resulting in a broken neck_ jump out at her. There are no leads, no suspicious activity to note. Danny Robbins has been known to make poor decisions, to go too hard too fast with no real consideration for his well-being or those around him. He's an entitled Capitol boy. No one will blink an eye at this. No one, except… well, the people that knew the real reason he was in Two.

"How'd you manage this?" she asks, tapping the photo of Robbins' smiling face. She doesn't remember much of a plan, nor does she remember the body getting moved. Granted, she did immediately fall asleep as soon as she got in that hotel room, but…

"Easy." Cam shrugs and that's that on that.

Derrick pulls the paper closer to him, apparently reading some article about the Marvil twins, which makes Massie's jaw clench, and avoids saying anything else. Like it's some sort of secret. Like she wouldn't approve. Have they forgotten she's killed people before, too? That she's been through the same training as them, if not _worse_? Do they know who she is?

"We know where he hangs out and what he does," Cam adds. "Things happen in Two, that's what we said. _Easy_."

"Huh," Derrick mutters, still perusing the paper. He's reading about the water shortage in the Capitol now, most likely from Four, and the rotten fruits from Eleven, and the disease in the cattle in Ten. It's a tiny little article, pondering the resources of the country, nothing more than stating facts - or so it seems. What it really is screams into the void: The districts are revolting.

It's more than a tiny, isolated group. It's everywhere.

Massie bites her lip, eyeing the Derrick's profile. He has a smattering of freckles on the underside of his jaw. She connects them with her gaze, creating a mush of a shape. She's never noticed before, actually, but she sees it now: A deep, angry, red gash, newly healed, snaking from behind his ear to somewhere beneath his shirt. She lifts her hand to lift it, to look where it goes, but with a quick clearing of his throat, Derrick shifts out of the way and says, "About the Massie thing, then, before we get to One."

Her name is enough to drop her arm. " _Massie_ thing? What Massie thing?"

Cam swallows, glass in hand, eyes seeing everything. "Alicia - Alicia found out some pretty interesting things recently," he explains. "We haven't all been in the same place in some time and it wasn't something she could just call or write about…"

Massie frowns. Derrick doesn't even see it, but says, "You were asleep."

"How does this apply to me?" Massie asks. "Why did no one wake me?"

"Wanted you to sleep," Derrick replies at the same time Cam answers, "We _tried_."

"She gave me these." Cam drops a pile of what look like ancient papers in between them. "Apparently they were archived in Three, but she found a bunch in Two, also, back in the Academy. I was looking them over before you got here, and I think this is the reason Myner is out to get us."

Massie focuses on keeping her hands from shaking as she grabs a few from the top of the pile. They feel old, kind of oily. Dust coats her fingertips when she pulls away, which she wipes on her thigh. Her stomach flips, and what little food she's eaten today threatens to come back up when she glimpses the bolded words at the top of the page.

 **Quarter Quell: Fiftieth Annual Hunger Games to Reap from all twelve districts and the Capitol**

"No," she speaks loudly, louder than expected. "That's not - I _saw_ these. I _know_ these Games. They're not… this isn't right."

The two boys do not move to read the rest like she does, rifling through them with such speed she's waiting for the paper cuts to litter her skin. They've clearly read these. They know what they say. What they imply.

But she's confused. She's spent her whole life watching her father's Games. She has them memorized, can play them in her mind alone with just a thought. It starts with a bloodbath at the Cornucopia, like they all do, with William at the helm. Then he spends the next two days, sleep-deprived and drinking from only one canteen of water, one he does not refill more than once, killing the competition with an axe. The weapon becomes so famed it is never again used by any other tribute, retired because the likes of William will never be seen again, and no one else comes close to being even a _fraction_ of worthy of it.

Derrick pinches the rim of his whiskey glass and pulls it towards him.

Cam says, "My theory is convoluted. Let me know when you get to the list of tributes."

The silence lasts maybe ten minutes, probably less. Massie reads and reads and reads, but the words don't make sense despite their sticking to her brain. She tosses another article in favor of a Capitol opinion piece, shoves that aside for a thorough dissection of odds and calculations. A gossip rag rates the female tributes by attractiveness. She finds the list Cam is talking about beneath a shiny photo of all twenty-six tributes, fierce and youthful.

Massie accidentally rips the paper down the middle when she sees it. "From the Capitol," she reads, piecing it together, "Alanna Sinclair, daughter of Martyn Sinclair, the mastermind behind the modern hovercraft, and Jonah Myner, son of President Grover Myner, next in line to rule our country."

"Keep going," Cam orders.

She swallows back the comment she has on the presidency, comparing it to a monarchy, and reads the rest. "It was a crowded affair to see off our first ever tributes at the Tribute Center, but there was no one more proud of Sinclair and Myner than the boy's own brother, Cole, though, if this reporter is being honest, he does not seem to care for the girl at all. Understandable, as we know the relationship between the brothers Myner is strong and envy-inducing. No two family members share a bond like these two; the love they share can melt a frozen heart."

It takes Massie more time than she'd like for her to process this. When she does, her mind is nothing but empty space. A flatline. There are no thoughts. No words. Just… emptiness.

Derrick finishes his drink in one swallow, reaches for Massie's. Finishes that too.

"Myner has a brother?" she asks stupidly.

"Had," Derrick says, the bite around the word a reminder he, too, _had_ a brother. A brother, a sister, a mother. Three nephews. A whole family.

"Jonah," Massie tests it out, "he was in the Games?"

Cam nods. "And he was supposed to win, obviously."

"It's a murder game," Massie argues. "You can't just put someone in the Games and expect them to win."

"You can't?" Cam retorts, tapping his fingers against the tabletop. "What do you call One, Two, and Four then? They're all guaranteed winners, if only because they send their strongest tributes each year."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean they'll _win_. There are surprises each year."

"Not often enough."

Massie thinks of Carrie, ruthless in her quest to return to her brothers. She wasn't from One, or Two, or Four. Massie can't even remember where she was from.

Behind her, Derrick exhales loudly, breath ghosting against her neck. She's startled by it; she kind of forgot there was a living person attached to the lap she's in, engrossed in these papers. These things that don't make sense.

"At its core, the Hunger Games are a reality show meant for entertainment. Everything about them is fabricated and manipulated to provide the most enjoyment. You're telling me they can't just _tell_ the Gamemakers and the hostages in Three's factories who they want to win and just… _make_ it happen?" Derrick leans his chin against her shoulder. His skin is warm against hers. "How many times have things happened in that arena you couldn't explain? Often it happens to get tributes closer to each other, but even more so it happens to make sure the most popular tribute excels while everyone else fails."

"Meaning they die," adds Cam.

"I know what he means," Massie snaps. "I've been there."

"And there were so many instances where _you_ , in particular, should have died," Cam continues, "but here you are."

"Nothing ever happened to make that so - "

"You think they can't manipulate someone's mind in there? They did it to you."

"In a hospital."

"That was blatant." Cam presses his elbows to the table. "This was subtle. If I recall, you never ate anything Kemp and Landon and Skye ate. You only ever shared food with Derrick and Rip-" He cuts off; a violent spasm wrecks Derrick's spine. Massie grips his knee. "I imagine once the darlings and the villains emerged, the Gamemakers began the slow decline of their sanity to make the Games more interesting. It helped that those three were already questionably sane to start."

Derrick blows out another breath, this one sending Massie's hair flying forward to settle against her collarbone. "That doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," Massie breathes, the pieces fitting together. It means she is not really a murderer, that none of them are murderers. They are accomplices to a greater crime, one committed by their overarching government. The Capitol and its people are murderers, not the kids from the districts. They orchestrate it, they pick who goes in, who goes out, who dies by what means, how they get to act when they emerge victorious.

Maybe Massie's hands are cleaner than she thought. Her heart sings at the thought.

"Not now, it doesn't," Derrick says softly.

Cam, analyzing her face, tacks on, "We can come back to that later. But for now…"

Massie is only half-listening as he speaks, laying out his crazy theory for Myner's dislike of her, starting with her father's participation in the Fiftieth Hunger Games. It's not like he had a _choice_ , though, so that isn't fair in the slightest. And it's even more unfair of him to take out his animosity and anger on Massie, and subsequently everyone else in the Games, both tied to her and not. Myner dislikes Victors, it is decided, but the Games are too old of a thing to change or eradicate, so he must do what he can to make them feel both inferior and superior, often at the same time.

So he sells them, he rearranges their brains (for their health), he makes them dependent on drink and drug. He has them become their worst nightmares and greatest fears and never, _ever_ lets them forget whence they came. The Hunger Games made them, the Capitol saved them, and they must repay it in any way he decides.

Her attention is split, however, and she has Cam and Derrick decoding the very fabric of their lives in one ear while her other is blocked off, letting her mind wander and wonder over the thought of not being a cold blooded killer. She is not free from blame entirely, but not all of it lies on her. The Capitol makes the Victors, and they mold the tributes, too, with false promises of glory, fame, and riches. They create a hierarchy of the districts, make certain ones poor and lacking, forcing them to try even harder if picked, if only to bring food back to their homes, their loved ones. But because they allow favoritism, those kids never make it farther than the first day— _sometimes_ —and the Careers pick them off, flush with experience and training. It's an endless cycle of give and take: give the people the opportunity to escape poverty, take that away with the introduction of children who've wielded blades and bows since birth. No one wins, she's learned that this past year; she's heard it from every mouth she's passed, has seen it in the gaunt faces of Twelve and the straining rib cages of Ten. Even in Four, where the Games are celebrated, the discord is palpable, just spoken in a different language, a language that, if heard, can have people hanged. In Three, a district of technological advancement and where the reality of the Games is nurtured, they push the boundaries.

No one wins. No one, but the Capitol. It will always be them - unless someone steps up to stop them.

And both the rebellion, all factions of it, and the Capitol have come to believe that person is her, so she must either be removed or followed.

" - you think, Massie?"

She cocks her head to the side like she's mulling it over, but she wasn't paying attention. Maybe she should have, but something has blossomed within her and it is more important for her to find its roots, to figure out what it is.

At least she knows what they're discussing, so she replies, "We should just watch them again."

"I can't imagine they'd have released this version, if this is true," Derrick replies. "We didn't even know about it until Alicia brought it up. It's like a national secret."

"But someone must know," Massie says. "A lot of someones actually. You ever notice the way people look at my dad? It's a combination of respect and fear and maybe a little anger too. I always thought it was just because he's the greatest, but maybe - "

"Maybe they expected something from him," Cam interrupts, "something he never provided."

"We could ask," suggests Derrick.

Massie blinks at him, tucking her hair behind her ear. It's a strain to see him, but he's there in the corner of her eye. The laugh that escapes her is short and shocked. Kind of bitter. "You think my dad would just _tell_ us how things went bad for him? I've known him my whole life and I've never once thought anything was wrong. I'm not even sure my mom knew."

Or maybe she did. Kendra's voice whispers through her mind. It's not anything she's ever said in real life, something of Massie's own making. A hallucination at best… but it resonates.

Maybe she did know. She did say William loved her in his own way. That he was trying…

"He may have the tapes," Cam says. "They let you keep the whole thing when you win. Unedited, uncut. A sick souvenir."

"Even the parts you're not in?"

Derrick nods. "I have ours."

"Have you watched it?"

"Of course not," he answers. "I'd rather not relive it."

Every waking second of Massie's life is her reliving the Games, but she doesn't tell him that.

"If he does have them," Massie says, "I know where they'd be." It's where he hides everything else that's ever had to do with the Games; he wasn't allowed to keep the axe, obviously, but he's amassed a lot of paraphernalia in the past.

She's never noticed before, the way he hides his glory behind closed doors. He releases it when he must—his anniversary, both wedding and victory—but other than that, he normally goes about his personal life as if it doesn't exist. He doesn't often get to escape it, but when he does, he's the one puttering around the kitchen and rearranging their house, performing menial tasks he finds immense pleasure in.

"When was the rebellion?" Derrick asks suddenly, like the thought just occurred to him and the words are torn from his grasp. "Not the one that gave us the districts, but the other one, where Thirteen was destroyed from the bottom up?"

"If I'm not mistaken," Cam begins, brow furrowed, "I'd say it happened during the Fiftieth Games." His gaze slides over to Massie, searching her face. "A lot of people died then, they say. There was hope for the first time in decades…"

"And that hope died," Massie finishes. "Something was expected of it… and it didn't provide."

Derrick grips Massie's thighs roughly, nails digging into her skin. He knows how she feels about this—they _all_ know how she feels about this—and yet…

There is a flame burning deep in her belly, and it isn't a result of her close proximity to Derrick. Has nothing to do with the hold he has on her legs or calluses on his fingers. It's similar to the kind of feeling she'd get when she picked up her boomerang or when she'd know there was a fight looming in the distance. It is—

It's _action._

"You may have more in common with your father than you realize," Cam suggests, looking between the two of them. Can he feel the tension? Can he sense all that she's feeling?

Do they know? Can they tell she's itching for a fight and all it took was one small thought to take hold in her brain?

"Let's go to my house when we get in," Massie decides. "We can find the tapes and go from there."

"Don't you have a tour to finish up?"

She opens her mouth to answer, the _no_ poised at the tip of her tongue. Cam is faster, though, as he says, "Yes. You do."

"But—"

 _There are more important things_ , she wants to say.

 _I don't want to stand in front of everyone_ , she really means. _I can't face them all after killing Kemp, after falling apart._

 _They'll never forgive me_ , her heart whispers.

"It's shorter than the others. You just have to give a little speech about how happy you are to be home, announce the prize for the district, all the food the Capitol will be giving us for a year"— _not that we need it, being as rich as we are, not when people in Twelve and Ten and Eleven are literally dying on the streets—_ "and then they'll host the buffet in the Justice Building. You can slip out then."

"That will take _hours_ ," Massie complains. "I won't get home until nine at the earliest, you know how people—you know what they're like here."

"They'll be happy to have you back," says Cam. "You'll need to speak to them. You can't just run from your responsibilities." He drains the last of his whiskey, taps Derrick's glass to ask if he wants more. Massie doesn't see his response. "And it's your home. These are people you've grown up with. It should make it all the more exciting for you. We can spare a few hours. There is always tomorrow."

Massie chews the inside of her cheek, averting her gaze. Through the window she watches the foliage and greenery of Two, not like there's much, disappear, turning into the concrete and asphalt that makes up One. In the distance she thinks she can see their Justice Building, the tallest structure in the district, created to look golden when the sun hits it. A rainbow of color explodes from the top, red orange yellow green blue purple taking over the sky until it gets hidden behind a white, fluffy cloud.

It looks like the perfect day in One. Massie'd walk her dog, take her the long way, if this were normal. She'd stop in the square, buy some fruit from vendors—raspberries grow best this time of year, foraged by the one and only stream they have in the north, right by the border to the Capitol. She'd snack on those, maybe help her mother with the garden, and head to the Training Center to spar with Kemp.

But life is not normal, her mother and Kemp are dead, and no matter how perfect it looks, the beautiful summer day does not raise her spirits. Something uncomfortable and heavy settles in her stomach, her bones, her blood.

Derrick presses a kiss to the back of her neck. "I'll go get them," he promises. He loops his arms around her waist, rests his forehead against her shoulder. The smell of whiskey overpowers her senses, makes her nauseous—or maybe that's the train slowing, pulling into One. "You'll be okay. They understand."

But they _don't_ , Massie thinks, wants to tell him. _They don't_. He doesn't know what it was like for her, to work just as hard as Kemp to be told not to, to slow down, to not outshine Kemp. She had, she _had_ outshone him, and that couldn't be allowed, not when everyone and their mothers wanted Kemp to be the one to win the Games. She'll have to face all those people, because she hadn't before, shuttled from the Capitol to Two to One and back to the Capitol. She has no idea how they feel about her, what they know about her. She'll have to face _Kemp's family_ …

Will they think her dishonorable? Will they hate her, these people who've watched her grow?

Part of her wants to beg Derrick to stay with her, to help her get through this last speech, but she doesn't. She won't. She's gotten through all eleven of the other ones without him. She does not need him to hold her hand.

So she says, "Okay," even though she doesn't want to, and reminds herself that she got through all of these things on her own. She may have had some help along the way, but _she_ did it. She survived it.

It's one more district, one more speech, and then she can put it all to rest.

 **…**

They say the scariest part of public speaking is standing there in front of all the people you don't know. Whoever decided that is wrong. It's when you have a sea of familiar faces below you, watching you, that fear creeps in. They know you. They can tell when you're lying, when you're speaking with someone else's voice. They will know what words are yours and which ones are not.

And as the daughter of William Block, the Beheader, the King, the President's Right Hand Man… everyone in District One knows her.

They'll know what a complete fraud she is. They'll know she's not all there, if she was ever there to begin with. They'll know her brain is not her own.

Worst of all, they'll fetter out just how sympathetic to the rebellion cause she is, and she's not sure where One's loyalties lie.

 **…**

It's her least practical outfit of the season. Maybe she's in it because this is her home and she's supposed to look effortless and comfortable, but Massie only feels exposed and underdressed and jittery.

She hasn't seen her father yet; he wasn't there when she got off the train. Derrick slipped away from her without so much as a backwards glance, helping the workers take all of Massie's belongings to her house, where he'll stay for the remainder of the night. Even Cam disappeared somewhere, leaving her in the clutches of Jakkob and his team, who pioneered one of the offices in the Justice Building, turning it into a full-scale dressing room.

It's not like she doesn't trust him, and it's not like she doesn't miss him—she hugged him for much longer than necessary—but… her mind is running a mile a minute, and she doesn't feel like herself, or the self she was before she got on that train. She's thinking about the letters Derrick wrote her that saved her life, the way Ripple died in that arena, the boy getting shot in Three, the way Danny Robbins tried to manhandle her…

"Relax," Jakkob commands. "Your makeup will turn out terrible if you keep yourself so rigid."

Massie tries, even following his breathing techniques. It doesn't work, but she forces it to, letting her eyes flutter shut once more. Her nervous energy transfers to her feet; her ankles feel like they're vibrating and she wants to shift her weight, but she won't. Not until her makeup is done and she's free to fret in peace.

There's no reason for her to act like this. There was no bad vibes when she disembarked from the train. No one threw anything at her, no one shouted anything awful, no one implied she was a terrible human being because of what she did to survive.

Of course they understand. If there is any district in the world that gets it, it's this one, the home of William Block and a score of other trained and deadly Victors. They all had to do it. They all had to face their truths, even those who hadn't been Reaped or up for volunteerism. It's unspoken. They all know what it's like to be twelve to eighteen. They all know the fear, even if they don't acknowledge it, of going into that arena. There's a fear you will die and it will be embarrassing and unworthy of discussion. There's a fear you'll turn out to be the opposite of a Career. And there's a fear you'll be Massie, who broke every cardinal rule of the Hunger Games to make sure she didn't end up alone. (She wasn't even aware that was something to fear until it happened. Never had it crossed her mind, getting two people out.)

And now here she is, in a loose pink knitted romper, with a deep neckline and a scooping back. Her makeup is pastel and sparkling, eyes wide with the help of a bit of white liner on her water line. Her hair is in two big braids, twisted into buns at the base of her skull. A cluster of gold necklaces wrap around her neck, shimmering and shining against the muted rose highlight brushed to the skin of her collarbones.

It is something she would have worn on her own a year ago. It is tame compared to the outfits she wore prior to the Games, during sponsor meet-and-greets and the interviews. It's a look that screams _Massie Block_ , and maybe that's the point, but she's never felt less like that girl.

She's never felt like the outfit was wearing _her_ , not she it, before.

"Dear, what's the matter?" Jakkob asks, swiping a last touch of blush to her cheeks. "You look radiant."

Massie shrugs. "Nervous, I guess."

Understatement.

"One more time," her friend says. "Then you can pick a talent and focus on that until they grow bored of you. It's been a very hectic year, but another Victor will come to take all the attention off of you and you can go back to normal."

"Do you really believe that?" Massie asks. "You think they'd forget about me after all I did?"

"Of course," he answers. "They always do."

Not everyone becomes Public Enemy Number One of the president and thus the Capitol, but Massie doesn't have the heart to rebuke him, not when he's always believed in her.

She smiles, presses a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you," she replies. "I love it."

"You'll be great. If you feel overwhelmed, just find me in the crowd. I'll be there, cheering you on." He nudges her shoulder with his. "And eagerly awaiting the end of your speech. The lemon cakes are to die for."

"That's true," Massie agrees, following him out of the room. "I'm more partial to the tiramisu though."

"Just think about that, then," Jakkob suggests, looping his arm through hers. "You'll get through everything much easier if you have an end goal. Make yours dessert. Who cares?"

 **…**

After a brief stutter on her end—she'd seen Kemp's mom—Jakkob turned out to be right. She's fine.

She knows all these faces. They're just a bit older than before, like little Ava Waters, who seems to have hit a growth spurt in the year Massie was gone. She'll be put in a different training class in school because of that, but the girl seems carefree and happy.

It's not like she's alone either; Cam came back moments before she went onstage, tugged at her hair to loosen it, and whispered, "Derrick's at the house. I told him where to look." Now he's standing to her left, lazily attractive in his long sleeved shirt and dark pants.

Massie thinks about how he had to do all this when he was fourteen, with her _dad_. What a nightmare. At least she has him, someone who gets it, who is a little more open.

She holds onto that, continues speaking. She's not sure what she's saying—it's another one of those speeches her father and Cam wrote—but it feels right here. More heartfelt. She didn't have a connection with any other district, save Four, but here… This is where she grew up, where she learned to walk, talk, run. She'd spent a lot of time fighting to get back here.

She finishes up, hands clammy, with, "Thank you for believing in me. I'm happy to be home," and the sounds of the cheers and applause of her district, of her friends and her family—it makes her ears pop.

It's raucous. It's loud. She can feel it in her teeth, her knees. Massie loves attention, but this… this makes her cheeks burn. Why would they give her this? It doesn't make any sense. It's not like she did anything good. She _ruined_ everything, tore the fabric of the Games apart because she was selfish and scared.

 _Hope_ , she reminds herself. _You gave them hope. Don't take it away from them._

It doesn't stop. Hands keep clapping and voices keep shouting and Massie makes eye contact with Shelby Wexler, a tall, willowy woman of maybe thirty, who winks at her.

It doesn't stop. It's so overpowering Massie feels like it shakes the world, exploding into something more than it is. They're happy to see her, happy to know her… but like her father—and she still doesn't know _why_ —they're expecting something.

Will she be able to provide? Will she be strong enough? When it came down to it in the Games, she could kill some kids. That was _easy._ Going against the entire world? The government? She's not so sure.

But looking at their faces, remembering the state of the people in every other district (except Two, fuck Two), Massie knows she has to at least try. But what does that entail? How does she do it? How does she keep herself from letting them down?

There's a roaring in her ears. Another smattering of applause, loud loud _LOUD._

Where's the mayor? Shouldn't he cut this off so they can start eating? That's the _point_ —

A burst of light to her left. The ground shakes, and it's not like everyone in front of her is stomping their feet. It's literally shaking the foundation of the buildings around her. Massie squints up, covering her eyes, and watches a tower crumble to the ground. It falls, dust and smoke and ash rise up, and the air fills with screams.

Up above, one—no, two—no, three—no, _four_ Capitol hovercrafts soar through the sky. The reflected light of the artificial rainbow off the Justice Building paints their white wings in red and orange and yellow.

They're multicolored and beautiful and they drop bombs and destroy the city. _Her_ city.

Everything goes black.


	16. Part Sixteen: Destruction

_**Not much to report here, just that there are two directions this story can go in and apparently I am on the fence about them. That, and I've officially written over 3,000 words for Scar Tissue, so there is hope there!**_

* * *

 _Let's Kill (Tonight)  
_ _Part Sixteen_

* * *

 **destruction | dəˈstrəkSH(ə)n**  
noun  
 _the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired  
_ synonyms: demolition, levelling, razing, ruination, smashing, shattering, dismantling, breaking up

* * *

She doesn't remember running.

The air is thick with smoke and debris, reeking of rotten eggs, of charred flesh. Massie gags, shoving her nose into her elbow, breathing in deep. She smells like sweat and her mother's favorite perfume; she relishes in that, in that one decision she made. It is calming, like her mother's presence had been, which is something she needs right now.

Her head hurts, pounding between her eyes in time with the continuous dropping of the bombs. They haven't stopped. They haven't—

Everything behind her is demolished. Dark clouds chase her down the street, the gemstones in the asphalt managing to still glitter dully without the sun. Her legs ache, muscles of her calves burning, but she doesn't dare stop. She _does_ trip, however, when she spares a glance behind her, just to see.

It's impossible to outrun them and it seems she's the only one trying.

Massie lands on her hands and knees. Pain shoots from her palms to her elbows, sharp enough that she has to grit her teeth against it. The ground rocks again, shaking beneath her, and it feels like it is going to open up and swallow her whole.

She'd welcome it, she thinks, if only it means she can stop running.

But she can't. Not if she wants to live. Not if she wants to see—

Massie forces herself up, breathing sharply through her nose and deeply out of her mouth. Her knees are scraped up and bloodied, skin shredded with grime and rock embedded between the cuts. It hurts, holy _shit_ does it hurt, but she runs.

She runs and she runs and she runs until Victors' Hill emerges in the distance, tall and proud and—

"No," Massie breathes. " _No_ no no no _no_!"

Victors' Hill remains in the distance, high above the rest, and it is on fire.

Every place is burning from the inside out. Orange and yellow flames lick at walls and doors and the grass surrounding them.

The smart thing to do is to veer to the left, where the bombs have yet to hit and the land is open for miles. Massie does the stupid thing: she runs toward the houses.

She doesn't get very far. Coughs wrack her, forcing her to a stop, and then—

"You're an _idiot_ ," Cam hisses in her ear, wrapping his arms around her and crushing her to his chest. He holds on for much longer than necessary, his heart hammering so hard against his rib cage Massie feels it like it's hers. "Don't you remember what you're supposed to do if we're bombed? Don't you _listen_?"

"Listen to what?" Massie demands. "We've never had any training for that! We're not supposed to get bombed, we're in _District One_! We're safe. We're supposed to be _safe_ —"

Cam grips her arms. "Don't you see, Massie? _Nowhere is safe_! Don't you get it now? Do you _understand_?"

"What are we supposed to do?" she retorts. "If it's not safe, how are we supposed to—" She trails off as another bomb hits, this time farther than the rest. "If I had just played the game _correctly_ …"

"We're at _war_ ," Cam shouts—in anger, and to be heard over the sounds of their home falling to pieces. "And _yes_ , you're the reason, what you did in the Games, it made this! But you need to stop throwing a pity party every time you think about it and you need to _pick a side_. No more flip flopping, no more taking too long to think about it. No more _I didn't ask for this_. I didn't ask to get sold like fucking cattle but here I am, getting treated that way anyway. The difference between you and me is that I _don't_ let it define me. Decide who you want to be and decide fast. Time is something we no longer have on our side."

Massie isn't quite sure if she's thrown through a loop because of the bombs or because of Cam's impassioned speech. All she knows is she's going to _cry_ and it could be due to a number of factors.

"Stop," she says. To herself? To Cam?

"I can't," Cam snaps. "No one else is."

The crackling of the flames seems louder, more intense in the silence that envelops the two of them. Massie turns her head to look, escaping Cam's all-knowing stare. The roof of one, maybe four down from Massie's house, falls. The rest of the building goes down with it. Massie winces.

"What am I supposed to do?" She hates that she still needs to ask for help, for advice. She used to know what to do. "They're bombing us. No one is going to come save—where do we go?"

"The only place we can go," Cam murmurs. He wipes at her face, fingers coming back dark with soot. "The Hub."

Massie wrinkles her nose. "I'd really—"

"I know you don't like her," Cam says quickly. "I don't either. But it's the only place we can go. There we can regroup, find out what's happening, where everyone else is."

"I need to find Derrick," Massie exclaims. Her stomach tightens with unease. "My dad. Bean!" She grabs Cam's hand, squeezes it maybe tighter than she should. "Cam, we need to find them. I won't leave without them. I _can't._ "

"It's not safe," Cam replies.

"And walking to the Hub _is_?"

"Massie—"

"Look." She points. "My house is right there. It's—we can get to it. We can _see._ "

"And what are you expecting to see?" he asks. "If they're smart, they would've left as soon as the fires started. If they didn't…"

There's either nothing there. _Hopefully_ nothing. It's either that, or… or…

She doesn't want to think it, but she has to. It's a possibility. It's a _strong_ possibility.

There could be bodies there. Three, burnt bodies. The thought of them, of _Derrick_ , dead sends her heart racing. Her hands shake as she grabs Cam's shirt, trying to ground herself. After everything she's done to keep him alive, to keep him _with_ her… she cannot handle it. Cannot fathom that this is how she loses him.

"Okay," Cam says, having read her face. "We'll check. Just… if it's not… if it isn't safe, we're turning back."

"Right. Yeah." Massie nods. "That makes sense."

Cam slips his fingers between hers and tugs her along, taking the lead.

She tries to calm herself, taking deep, cleansing breaths as they climb up the hills. It gets hotter and hotter the closer they get. Sweat drips down her spine, clinging to her skin. The fabric of her romper sticks uncomfortably to her back.

They get to the top.

They get to the top, and the carnage is—it's much worse than she can imagine.

Cam coughs into his fist, pulling her farther along. Massie's eyes widen, taking in the only neighborhood she's ever known. The Cliffords' house is nothing but a porch, the rest of it a pile of beams and wood. Becky Manning's roof fell straight down, crushing the rest of it. All she can recognize of Topher Bank's home is the material of the couch; half of it is in the street. The rest is nowhere to be seen.

"You don't think people were in there, do you?" she asks. No house is left in one piece. "They should've been at the square."

"Not everyone goes," Cam says. He frowns up at the house he was assigned, looking like a bomb went straight through it. He's never in it, opting to sleep in his mother's home, a few down the street, or Massie's dad's, directly across from his. He avoids looking to his left, turning around.

Massie does it for him, more out of fear of seeing her own. She hopes Pamela wasn't there when this happened. Maybe she was at the market, or visiting a friend, or even at the cemetery for her son or husband. Anything would be better than the death she'd suffer at this total annihilation.

"Massie," Cam whispers.

The tone… she doesn't like it.

Everything inside of her is screaming for her to stay still, to not find out. She has to fight against it—the urge to flee—and she does, she really does, if only because she _needs_ to know. Needs to see.

Cam's hand slips up arm to hold the back of her neck. She can't figure out if she thinks that's comforting, or if she feels choked. The warmth of him is something she appreciates though, a different kind of heat than that of the fires around them, dangerous and burning through everything, grass and gardens included.

Victor's Hill is a war zone. Nothing is untouched.

 _Nothing_ , not even Massie's house.

The windows are blown through, the curtains her mother picked out (her father hated doing that) shreds of gauzy material. Her front door hangs on the hinges, broken in half.

The fire hasn't reached it, or it wasn't set here, but that doesn't mean it's safe to be there. From the looks of it—

"Someone broke in here," Cam announces. Massie shifts further into his side. "Looks like they didn't like what they found."

Massie swallows. It hurts, her throat too dry. "Should we go in?"

"No," says Cam definitively. "We don't know what we'll find in there."

"Isn't that the point of this?" Massie asks. "To find out what's… what's in there?"

He's silent.

He's silent because she's right.

And because she's right, she starts the short walk to what remains of her front door.

There is a heavy shudder ahead of her, halting her steps, and Cam's arms are wrapped around her waist, pulling her back hard and fast. They trip over each other, he falls back, she lands on top of him and her house is nothing but the parts that make it up. All that remains are the memories she made there—the fun she had, the fights with her mother, the breakfasts with her father—they're all in her head now.

And so are the people, if they were in there in the first place.

Cam scrambles to his feet, wrenching her up, and then he's all but running away from this, from where they lived and grew and loved. Where they were victims to the Capitol and their expectations.

All Massie had wanted to do was come home.

They took that away from her too.

Her hand is slick against Cam's. She wants to pull away, wipe her palm on her romper, clean it of the dirt and the sweat and the blood, but he doesn't give her the opportunity to let go. If anything, he holds her tighter, even as she stumbles down the hill. He does not let go, even as the distance between them and the Hill, the district, gets farther and farther.

Eventually the woods close in on them, branches criss crossing above to hide the sun and the sky. The scents turn natural, making it easy to breathe, and Massie takes in the earth around her, glad to be away from the death and decay of the bombing. That joy is fleeting, however, given everything that happened, and she tugs her lower lip between her mouth, chewing the flesh as a distraction.

She also ignores how Cam's head turns this way and that, his back straight, posture tense. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he was lost.

He might as well be, but Massie refuses to acknowledge that she's lost her home and will die in the forest surrounding One all in the same day.

So she says, "It's getting late," even though she can't really tell. She's got no concept of time: it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, it could have been days.

And Cam replies, "Yeah."

Her hand remains in that same clenched position even after she lets go of him. She stretches them out, knuckles cracking, and picks at what looks like dried blood crusted around her fingernails.

"We should stop," she suggests. She is tired and kind of hungry but mainly very nauseous and full of what feels like shock. But she shouldn't be, should she? She knew something bad was going to happen. She could feel it.

" _Here_?" Cam inquires. "We're—it's the middle of nowhere."

"There's nowhere else," Massie replies, "and we've been through worse. I think we'll survive."

"Yeah, but then we had weapons, and people sending us water, and—"

"You don't carry anything on you?" Massie asks, accidentally cutting him off.

" _No_ ," Cam answers. "Do you?"

Massie kicks her bootie off, pulls a tiny little blade from the inside. She does the same with the other. "I always thought Dad was crazy, but maybe he knew I'd have need of a knife in the future. I don't know." She undoes her belt, drops that in the pile. "If we get close enough, we can strangle something with that, and we can also use the heels of my shoes if it comes down to it."

Her brother blinks at her, mouth agape, and he looks so stupid, so dumbfounded, then, just staring at her. Did the effects of the bombing somehow give her three heads? "What," he says.

"What? Check your shoes."

He doesn't move. Massie sighs, leans forward, unties his laces. Hidden beneath the soles she finds two more blades, similar to hers. She puts them aside and pats his jeans down.

"How did I not feel that?" Cam wonders as she pulls at the strings of an inner pocket her father must've sewn in there. It makes her question just how many of their clothes and accessories he's turned into weapons.

"Getting soft and lazy," Massie drawls. "That doesn't do well in this family, big bro." She taps two fingers to his knee, pushes herself up. "You remember how to start a fire? I'll get dinner."

 **…**

Around a mouthful of rabbit, Cam poses the question.

Massie pretends not to hear it, watching the dark space in the distance. It's the way they came. She's certain if anyone were following them they'd come that way and given their meager supplies, she wants to be prepared. It's also a way to ignore the churning of her stomach—and that's not from the gamey meat of the animal she slaughtered.

 _No, Cam,_ she thinks derisively. She always says his name like that in her head, but never aloud. _I do not want to talk about it._

It's _always_ that. Always _Massie, how are you feeling? Massie, do you want to talk? Massie, Massie, Massie_. What is she supposed to do here, tell him her feelings and have him feel sympathetic? Sure, his home was destroyed too but he didn't have to watch it. He didn't just go through the worst year of his life and be denied _everything_ as soon as it was over.

She asks, "Do you know if your mom was in your house?" It's a low blow, but she throws it anyway, if only to see the look on his face: gritted teeth, eyes flickering to the side. "Do you want to talk about _that_?"

His brother died recently, Harris, around the same time as Massie's mother. That can't have been a coincidence. Maybe she should stop being an asshole.

Massie bites viciously into her food, silencing herself.

It's unfortunate that she can't turn her thoughts off as easily as her voice though.

Every memory she's ever had races in the forefront of her mind: birthdays, training, her parents, Kemp, her dog. That house and all its hiding places when she was younger, the garden she'd pull herbs and veggies from in the summertime, the walk to the market, where she'd indulge in sweets and newly sewn clothes. She thinks about the way her mother used to smell (and pauses to sniff her wrist, to see if the perfume is still there. It's not), and how her father always drank three cups of coffee and pored over newspapers on Sunday mornings. She remembers exactly how Bean yips when she's hungry and the feel of her fur beneath her head when she lays on her like a pillow. Derrick's face appears next, the way it looked when she first met him: freckled and smug, eyes twinkling like he had a secret. She can almost feel his hands twisting her hair behind her, fingers brushing her shoulders, mouth against her temple, her cheek, her own.

They've taken that all away, left her with Cam, who is—he's great. He's fine. She can survive with him, but he's half a shell as it is, torn apart inside and out. They did that to him early, slowly, over years and years and what feels like lifetimes. They seem to be making up for lost time with Massie.

Mouth full, she asks, "Do you want to take first watch or should I?"

Cam groans, leaning back on his elbows. "I thought I was _done_ with that."

"You are never done with the Hunger Games," Massie says sagely.

"I don't really think we _need_ a watch," he muses. "If there was a threat it'd have stumbled upon us by now. We made a fire out in the open."

Massie sniffs imperiously. "As a seasoned Career who _wanted_ to volunteer—"

"—I know how Careers act, Massie—"

"—I would wait until literally, like, right now to strike, maybe a little later. We were actually remarkably stupid to make this fire, now that I think about it, and since we have no real long-distance weapons, we should probably just start moving elsewhere—"

"If it really means that much to you I'll take first watch," Cam interrupts hastily.

"Now we need a plan." Massie drops a bone to the ground, leans her elbows on her knees. "Do you know where we're going and what we'll be facing when we get there?" A leaf rustles in the wind. Her head snaps to the right. "I really do think we should move."

"Fine," Cam says. Stands. "Let's go deeper then. The Hub is on the outskirts of the Capitol, if you remember, so we'll need to go east more before we reappear on the border. I want to get as far away as possible before we're seen."

Massie pouts her bottom lip, chapped and so very dry. "Shouldn't we cover the fire? And our tracks? Make it seem like we were never here?"

"We could." Cam enunciates the words slowly. "But if we leave it like this they'll think we're returning and maybe they won't try to search too hard for us. Whoever _they_ are," he grumbles under his breath.

"Seems reasonable," agrees Massie. She even deigns to leave her half-eaten rabbit, the creature not settling well in her stomach. It's astounding she managed to survive off of those for as long as she did without dying.

Slipping her collection of tiny knives—much tinier than the ones she normally favors—between her fingers, the blades becoming a literal extension of her, and plods along after Cam. It's chilly, she notes, but not cold enough to warrant a complaint. It's one of those typical summer nights, not quite as pleasant as the weather in Four, where she felt as if she could continue to lounge in a swimsuit if she felt like it, but warm enough that she doesn't need a jacket. Not really. It would just be nice. The slight chill can settle in bones quite easily. Multiply. Make her feel colder than she is.

They walk for what feels like a half hour. Fifteen minutes into it, Massie stops dragging her feet, steps as quick and light as a mouse. She erases their trail then, makes it look like they climbed a tree.

Focusing on the survival skills she'd learned for the Games somehow does wonders for her sanity. It's remarkably easy to fall back into it: to listen for suspicious sounds, to be on high alert, to see into the dark. Her hands remain still, steady, and her heart slows into that calm she always possessed before she was faced with a murder, be it animal or person. Not once does she think of what occurred today. Not once does she wonder about the state of One.

And if she does, she tests the sharpness of her blades and uses the others to sharpen them. They're fine, if she's not trying to do any lasting damage, but she decides she wants to be able to throw them and have them cut straight through skin. Slice through necks. Take out an eye, splinter bone, shred brain tissue.

If she focuses on that enough, there is no place for her current worries.

"I thought I said I'd take the watch," Cam whispers beside her, back against a tree trunk.

Massie barely spares him a glance. "I can do it," she says. "Sleep if you want. I'm fine."

"Sure," Cam replies, anything but. "It's sharp enough, by the way."

She purses her lips, eyes it. "Could be sharper."

His hand covers hers, stopping her in her path. "Massie," he sounds out, slow and deliberate. It makes her listen, _really_ listen. Her hand wavers. "It is sharp enough."

Okay, but it _isn't_ , can't he see? Can't he see that—

Her hands are covered in thin scratches. They're of varying lengths, long and short; the only reason they're even noticeable now is because of the blood that coats her fingers and her palms like a second skin.

She presses them together, accidentally digging her knife, the sharpest one, into her thumb. It doesn't _hurt_ , it really doesn't, but it does break through the void that's overcome her.

Cam says something, wrestles the knives out of her grip, places them by her thigh. Massie doesn't hear him, doesn't feel him. She watches the new blood drip drip drip down her finger, staining her wrist and arm as it travels towards her elbow. It reminds her of the Games, which makes sense because she's acting like she's in them still, but the memories are not good.

Not like they're _supposed_ to be good, the Games are traumatic, but—

It's Derrick it reminds her of.

The first time they really, truly interact in the arena. She's on watch, she remembers, and he refuses to sleep until she's done because he… he feels like he has to, for their alliance.

 _Because he loved you_ , her brain whispers. _Even then he loved you and you let him_ die _today._

She whimpers right then, she thinks.

He comes to sit next to her even though he shouldn't because they're trying to be secretive about it, not like that worked, and then he's flirting with her and she with him, and he's in her personal space, hands _literally_ in her jacket. He pricks himself on her knives, just like she did now, and he acts surprised. He knows she has those in there, so he should have known better. She never notices when she hurts herself like this, which is why Cam had to tell her.

But Derrick doesn't do what she does, he uses a trident that he can't accidentally harm himself with, and he's very aware of the pulsing of his finger. Massie is stupid at this point, bored with lack of action, and she leans forward, and—

In real time, Cam pulls his sleeve over his hand, squeezes her finger until it throbs and the blood slows.

His shirt is stained when he pulls back. He merely hums, rolls the sleeve back up, and continues staring straight ahead.

Massie's heart pounds. Races. It may shatter, too, but she's not very good at things like that, so she's not too sure.

Her knife is not sharp enough. She reaches for it.

Cam is faster than she is, darting out to intervene and wrestling their hands into a very uncomfortable, very unwanted handhold. He doesn't say anything, but doesn't let her let go, either.

Massie coughs, throat closing up, and moves closer until they are but one, burying her face in his side. There, she works to steady her breaths. Cam only shifts to throw his arm around her, taking her hand again to keep her from using it.

At some point, Massie falls asleep, and he doesn't bother to wake her for the second watch.

Her dreams have no rhyme or reason. They're dark and twisted, and she sees the faces of people she knows, people she knew, and then they're gone in a burst of light. She feels jittery as she wakes, heart pounding, blood racing.

And then there are the voices.

Often Massie dreams she's woken up to realize she hasn't actually and she wonders for a brief second if this is real. Because it can't be. It really can't.

"I could _kill_ you," Cam snaps. "I honestly—for fuck's sake."

"You really look like you could kill me," Derrick drawls sarcastically. "All cozy like that."

"I _could_ ," Cam shoots back, "if I thought you were a threat. But, you know, you're not, so I didn't bother."

But she'd _seen_ it, she'd been there. The house… it fell. Collapsed right in front of her.

She'd never once thought he wasn't in there. She'd just assumed.

Derrick snorts. "Don't think I'm a threat," he repeats. "Right. Sure."

"Oh, shut up, you caught me off guard, okay?" Cam slackens his hold on her; she hadn't realized he'd been gripping her so tight. "I haven't had to worry about this shit in years, but I can still use a knife if I had to."

"And there are four right there, and yet…"

"There's still time," Cam promises.

"You wouldn't," Derrick replies. "You'd miss me too much."

Cam hums, noncommittal.

"She looks cold," Derrick observes. He sounds closer now, like he's sat down nearby. She could find out, but Massie is too scared to open her eyes and realize it's all a dream.

Having him alive and well while she sleeps only to wake to him dead… that's crueler than any of her nightmares have been lately.

"That's because she is." Cam squeezes her shoulder. "She just won't tell me."

A rustle, then warmth on her arms. Fabric that smells too much like Derrick for this to be a fabrication, with just a hint of smoke. Less than her and Cam, like he somehow missed the fire and the bombing.

"Here, let me," Derrick offers. "You go to sleep. God knows you need it since your first reaction to me was to, y'know, _do nothing_ —"

"For the _last time_ …" Cam begins, but doesn't finish, because faking sleep has convinced Massie she's really asleep, and she doesn't hear the rest.

Her dreams, the second time, are softer. Warmer. They all smell like Derrick. They all take place on a beach.

When Massie wakes again, it's still dark out. This time, she opens her eyes, having forgotten what she woke up to the first time.

A lone owl hoots in the distance. A buzzing sound indicates some bugs around, but it's hard to determine which ones they are. There aren't that many, but cicadas are prominent some summers. Not all.

She notices she's warmer than before, too, and her upper body is covered in a blue flannel shirt, which she's certain she's seen on—

"Hey," he says softly, probably because Cam is asleep somewhere to their left, "you up?"

Massie gasps, head lifting from where it's rested on his chest. She's not sure if she wants to slap him or kiss him or maybe yell. The last one is not an option in the slightest, so she twists in his embrace, peering up at his face.

His _face_ , still as she remembers it. Beautiful, tanned, freckled. So, so symmetrical.

She presses her palms to his cheeks, squishes them. His nose wrinkles.

"Huh," she decides to say. "When'd you get here?" It is much calmer than she is inside, which is a plus.

Derrick shrugs. "Coupla hours ago. Did you know Cam is very loud? It wasn't hard to find you."

This annoys Massie, especially because she'd hated Skye for that same reason. She shoots Cam's sleeping form a glare; he's curled up in himself, halfway across the clearing.

"Said he wanted to be as far away as possible when you woke up and realized I was here," Derrick tells her. "He seems to think you plan on punching me in the face."

"I don't think I would have _punched_ you," Massie replies. "I just… a lot happened yesterday and I might have thought—" She breaks off, looking past him into the distance. The darkness grows heavier back there. "I thought…"

Her house, nothing but a massive pile of wood and beams and furnishings.

Her district, exploding around her. Hovercrafts dropping bombs on the town square, because… because…

Fuck.

She meets his gaze again, not knowing what he sees there, and surges forward.

He meets her move for move, kissing her back with as much desperation and fear as she's kissing him. They've been through two particularly trying events recently, both that could have ended in the destruction of the other, and Massie doesn't know how to handle any of that in a way that is not _this._ Not bodily contact, touching every inch of him, slipping her palms over the muscles of his stomach, his arms, his chest.

They could talk, she supposes, but that doesn't do a thing to prove he's here. She's here. Alive, in one piece. She wants to tell him never to leave her again, wants to make him _promise_ , because something has changed here, she can feel it.

The words die before they can fully form.

Derrick devotes time to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone as slowly as possible. His tongue follows the path his lips take. Heat rises where he touches, all the way down the deep neckline of her romper. He noses the material of it, pushing it aside. The strap slides down her arm to her elbow.

Massie mewls, soft, grinding her hips down in time with the movement of his tongue.

Derrick stops, breathes heavily against her, and slips his hands up her legs. Up up up.

"How do I get this off?" he asks.

"Just—" Massie swallows, shimmying. "Just push it to the side, it doesn't need to— _god_ ," she whispers. "Should we—should we be doing this with him over there?"

Derrick tugs her lower lip with his teeth, sucking it in his mouth and letting go. "We'll have to be quiet," he decides. "Can you do that for me, baby?"

Massie nods.

He smiles and she runs a finger over his dimple, the one on the left. _This_ is what she's fighting for, the chance to see his face every day, no matter the context. No need to kill bugs to call him or bribe train conductors to leave without him or wait until Capitol-mandated parties to even get a real glimpse of him.

Cam was right, and she hates that she has this tiny thought of him right now. She _needs_ to make a decision and stick with it. She can't keep saying one thing one moment and acting a fool the next.

This is a sign. _He's_ a sign. Derrick living through all of this—the arena, his own punishment, the bombing, the fire—all of the things that should have killed him… they didn't. And that's—that's what she needs.

She's always known her decision. She's said it out loud twice, three times, maybe. But she's never fully acted on it. She's done some, but not enough.

They've taken her mind and her home. They will not take this. They can't.

"You okay?" he asks. He's never stopped looking at her, meeting her gaze as her mind runs rampant.

"Yes," she answers, "now that you're here."

She often wonders if he can read her mind; he always knows what she's thinking. Now is no exception. He kisses her again, soft and sweet, with enough understanding that makes her think her thoughts are written all over her face.

He presses his nose against hers. "Let me make you feel better than okay," he whispers, "but you have to be quiet."

His hands disappear beneath the shorts of her romper, which makes her wish she had the hindsight to know this would occur and beg Jakkob to put her in a dress instead.

Her breath hitches.

 **…**

The sun is rising when Cam rouses, sky painted with the softest shades of pink and yellow and orange. Massie doesn't think it's quite fair the world gets to look so pretty after what happened in One, but nature never once cared for the woes of humans. It continues on.

Days begin and they end, that much is true. That much she's seen. But the sun has set on District One.

"Oh," her brother says. "You haven't been murdered." He frowns, eyes focused on her face (the swollen lips, the messy hair, the perpetually flushed cheeks). "That's a shame."

Derrick throws a stick at him. "Stop denying our love, Cameron," he shoots back.

"I'm not," Cam says loftily. "I believe the strength of it was what brought you back to us."

"Sure," agrees Derrick, "if you're basing it on how loudly you walk and otherwise exist."

"In my defense," Cam retorts, "I haven't had to worry about snapping branches or sneaking up on people in years. Give me a break, Newbie."

Derrick sniffs, throwing his arm around Massie. "We should get rid of him," he tells her conspiratorially, loud enough that Cam can hear. "He's only going to be dead weight in the end." He sighs. " _Give me a break._ Honestly."

Massie is surprised by the giggle that escapes her, and she hides her face in Derrick's bicep.

"I am a _vital_ member of this team," Cam says loudly. "Can you just tell me what happened to you? I was _worried_."

"Aw," Derrick coos. "Did you hear that, Massie? He was worried about me!"

"Yeah," says Massie. "We thought you were dead."

"Or worse," supplies Cam. It's easy, the way he delivers it, but they can all hear just how concerned he actually was. Maybe he isn't just important to Massie anymore. Maybe he's important to a lot of people.

Fingers tug at Massie's hair, pulling her braids apart just for them to be put back together. She moves so he has better access to her head and listens as he speaks, gaze firmly on her hands.

"So, your dog is an angel," he begins, "and she's with your dad."

"Will was there?" Cam asks.

"Yeah." Derrick pauses. "He's… probably the reason I'm not dead. He—I think he knew this was going to happen," he continues. "He's in the Capitol."

"He just… let it happen?" Massie questions. "He knew they were going to—and he didn't try to stop them?"

Cam murmurs, "What was he supposed to do? Stand up in front of Myner and tell him no? He's supposed to be on his side."

"Yeah, but I don't think he really is," Derrick replies quickly.

"Obviously," Cam says, harsh.

"No. I mean to say there's a lot we don't know, and I attempted—" His finger gets caught in a knot in Massie's hair. He shakes it out, continues to braid. "I found two different versions of the Fiftieth Games in your house."

"A complete and an edited," Cam remarks.

"No. They were—they're not—just look at them."

Massie twists, not caring that her braids are uneven. For the first time, she notices a lot more about Derrick than she did before. He looks exhausted, for one, and his arms are covered in large bruises, marks that take up the entire length of his forearm. He also, oddly enough, has a pink, sparkly backpack with him. _Massie's_ pink, sparkly backpack from when she was, like, eight.

"Were you in my room?" she demands.

Derrick grins at her. "Yep."

"Ugh." Then: "What did it look like?"

"I dunno, like your bedroom," he answers. "Freakishly clean for not having anyone live in it for a year."

Right.

She doesn't remember what it looked like, if she's honest, and now the only description she has is "freakishly clean." Cool, cool, cool.

Zipping open this pink bag, Derrick pulls out two disc holders. One is small, with maybe two CDs inside. The other holds about ten. Both are labeled _050-01_ , but the tiny one reads _simulation._ It has more wear and tear on its cover than the other, which looks to be in pristine condition, despite the—

"Is that _blood_?"

Derrick picks at it. Lifts a shoulder. "I think. It won't come off, whatever it is."

Massie shudders, smacking her lips. There is no reason for that to have blood on it and she knows she will be provided with no answer as to why it's there. And she doesn't really want to know, but her mind… it whispers her mother's name.

"Let me see that." Cam holds his hand out. "Mine is divided by time of kill, kind of like a table of contents in a book."

"Mine too," Derrick puts in. "That's where it gets weird."

He cracks open the bigger case, reads off numbers and names until Cam goes, "What? Who's Charlotte?"

"The girl from Four," Derrick says slowly, looking over yet another list. This one, Massie sees, has the names and ages of each tribute in the year's Games. "She killed the twins from Seven at hour one hundred thirty, minute twenty-seven."

"No," Cam disagrees. "Will killed the twins from Seven at hour thirteen, minute four."

"See what I mean?" Derrick poses. "It's confusing. It doesn't make sense. Why are there two different versions of—"

"My dad had the shortest Games in history," Massie interrupts. "Less than two days."

"Which never made sense, did it," Derrick responds. It is not a question. It's a fact. "How could he manage that? There was only one of him, right, and the only time to knock out that much competition is during the Bloodbath the first day. He couldn't have gotten _all_ of them then. Even if he had help, some of the smarter tributes will run off without bothering with weapons until later."

"So what? They made two different versions and only aired one?"

"No, they aired this one"—Derrick indicates to the version he's holding—"and when William struck up an alliance with Myner's brother to literally stab him in the back four hours later, they created a simulation of the Games _we_ know to be played after all the newly risen rebels were murdered, publicly and gruesomely, showing whoever was still sympathetic to the cause that they lost, and they had William Block, symbol of the rebellion, on their side."

There is a loud, drawn out moment of silence until Cam goes, "You _literally_ just made that up."

"No, William told me that," says Derrick. "I asked him, like I suggested we do, and he answered me."

"He doesn't even," Cam starts, puzzled. "Have you two even talked?"

"Twice," Derrick answers. "This was the third time."

"Sometimes he'd mention someone named Charlotte," Massie contributes, memories assailing her. "He… I always thought she was, like, someone he'd been interested in before my mom, with the way she acted, but—that's not true, is it? That's your mom, Cam. She was the other—the Charlotte he was talking about, it must've been this one. He spoke very highly of her."

Derrick bobs his head. "They were allies. She was the only one he trusted. Fabiana and the kids from Two were shady."

 _Uncanny_ , Massie thinks. Her dad also partnered up with a Four.

"One and Four have a very companionable relationship," Cam notes. He, too, worked with the tributes from that district when he was in the arena. They're basically the ones who saved his life when the unnatural heat came.

"You're talking about this like you were there," Massie comments, ignoring the way Derrick kicks at her foot when Cam says _companionable_.

"We talked for a while, your dad and me," he says. "It was—he told me to take these, to watch them if we could because the answers are there, but he tried to explain enough to feed my curiosity. He never wanted you in the Games, Massie. He never wanted you to turn into him."

She knows that, but only because her dad is telling other people, not her. She wonders if it's harder for him to talk to her about it than it is to talk to other people. Maybe he just doesn't trust her.

"But what did he _say_?" she wants to know.

"Just what I told you," Derrick answers. "And a little more, but that doesn't apply here. Not really."

" _Not really_?"

"Not now," he amends, making a face.

Massie opens her mouth to argue, because none of this makes any sense, and she wants to know more. Wants to know why her dad talks to everyone but her, what he's hiding from her, if he's hiding anything. Why can't she know these things? Why is she in the dark if he doesn't want her to go down the path he has? Shouldn't he be _guiding_ her?

Words do not leave her before Cam starts talking. The boys are always talking and she is always silent, always listening.

"You said he knew? About the bombing and the fire? How?"

"Dunno," answers Derrick. "I imagine someone in the Capitol told him. You know the only reason they're doing this is because Massie is back. They're not even trying to hide it anymore."

"The rebellion isn't hiding either," Cam reminds him. "You've seen the papers. They may not have declared it, but we're at war."

Derrick rubs his face. "The districts against the Capitol. Again."

"Do you wonder if they've done anything to Four?" Massie asks. "Or is it just here?" It seems, given their shocked silence, she's the only one to think this. "I'm not the only person involved in this. We both did it."

"I'm not saying you're wrong," Cam says, "but you're the one who initiated it. Derrick was willing to die so it would end properly, you… you weren't going to stand for that. You embarrassed them, so they chose to destroy you."

"But what's going on with you—"

"—is normal," Cam finishes bitterly. "Victors are sold all the time. We pay back our debts like that. Your punishment was different. It wasn't even a punishment, it was a manipulation. They wanted to make the world hate you so it was easier to get rid of you. That was the purpose of the brainwashing. That's the purpose of making you tour and showing you your Games after the brainwashing didn't work. They're just trying to make you unlikable enough to have people stop following you."

And then, to add fuel to the fire, he adds, "It almost worked."

"But it didn't," Derrick amends quickly. "It didn't," he repeats when she doesn't move, doesn't say anything. "You've fought all of it. You didn't let them win. The districts can see the person I see all the time."

Though he makes that girl up, doesn't he? If he can't find her, he pushes and pushes until there's a tiny part of her there. The districts can't be much better in finding a hero in her if Derrick can't.

"They want who you were in the arena," Cam elaborates. He's a bit rougher than the other boy is. "Are you ready to be that girl or do we have to keep waiting?"

"Cam," Derrick warns.

"Derrick," he shoots back. "I'm not telling her anything she doesn't already know."

"We aren't going to force her into—"

"I get that you're in love with her and don't want to make her uncomfortable, but _my home was just destroyed_ ," Cam snaps. "If there were ever a time to force her to make a decision, it would be now, while we're still alive to make decisions."

"I didn't mean to," Massie mumbles.

Cam's face softens. "I know," he replies, "and I'm sorry. You don't deserve to be talked to like that. I'm just—it doesn't seem like it's going to end, is all, and it hasn't even started. Not fully."

She reaches out her hand for his, intertwining their fingers, and lets the guilt wash over her. She hadn't considered the consequences of her actions, hadn't considered they'd affect everyone else.

"We should get moving," Derrick observes after some time, squinting up at the sky. The sun has moved closer to the highest point, almost noon. "I think if we make good time we can get to the Hub before nightfall."

Cam helps Massie up, presses a soft kiss to her temple, and offers to scout ahead. She shoves their collection of tiny knives in his hands, a sort of peace offering, and watches him go. She makes sure to keep an eye on him from where she walks, a few feet behind, just in case.

"He doesn't mean it."

"I know."

"But he's—"

"—right, I know that too."

"You don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with," Derrick says. "Don't say things just because they'll make the rest of us happy."

"You know me," Massie answers. "I don't do that." She steps over a log. "I've chosen. I chose long ago, but today really cemented it. It's just… it's hard, and I don't know who to trust besides you."

"Well, Cam, for starters. He'd never do anything to hurt you."

"I know." Massie tucks her hair behind her ear. "But there is something going on between Angela and District Three, and you know I don't trust Angela either and I refuse to do the bidding of people I don't believe in again."

Derrick runs his hand through her hair. Has her stand still. He deftly and quickly twists the locks into two braids down her back. "I don't like her either," he agrees. "Chris Abeley is doing more than she is—has done more than she ever has in years, actually."

 _Thank god._ If he didn't feel the same way she isn't sure what she'd do. "I wish we could go anywhere else."

"It's the closest place," Derrick says, like that makes it any better. "We can regroup, shower, watch the tapes. We'll go from there."

"Go where?" she asks. There's nothing left for her. No home, no mother. Just a father and dog miles away from her, under the thumb of the very man trying to eliminate her.

Derrick pulls on a pigtail like they're kids on the playground, forcing her closer to him. "Home," he answers, "to Four."

Her heart pounds so hard in her chest it hurts. _Home. To Four. Home._ It'd be nice to have a place that felt like that again. Nice to have that with him.

She fists his shirt, the v-neck he's been wearing under the flannel she's got on over her romper. It's dirty, covered in grass stains and blood, which makes her realize he never really explained how he managed to make it out of Victor's Hill.

"I really thought you were dead," she whispers.

He moves his hand from her braid to her face, holding her cheek. "Me too," he says. "I just can't believe I found you."

"Don't leave me again," Massie orders.

Derrick brushes the pad of his thumb along her jawline. "No," he agrees, "I don't think I will."

 **…**

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

" _That._ "

"I don't—"

"Cam?"

"What?"

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

" _That._ "

"You have to be more specific, _that_ could mean anything. It could be the owls, or the bugs, or my own breathing—"

"Shut _up_ and listen!" Massie hisses.

On her right, Derrick mutters, "Whatever it is, it can definitely hear you."

If Massie could _see_ , she'd stomp on his foot. It's dark as hell, so dark she can't make out what's five feet in front of her. It could be Cam; it could be a fucking tree. They found out a while back that without the lights from One they were basically sightless; the stretch died out miles back and now they were traveling based on Cam's "internal compass." Massie thinks it's a bunch of shit, but she's been no help for the past two hours.

"I don't—"

" _Shhh_ ," she snaps, throwing an arm out blindly to cover his mouth. She cuffs him in the ear instead.

"Ow." Derrick laughs. "What, did they not fit you for night vision contact lenses at the Academy?"

"There is no such thing as _night vision contact lenses_ ," snaps Massie. "Now will you please just _listen_?"

"I am listening, it's just I don't hear—"

"Listen with your ears, not your mouth."

"I don't think I _can_ listen with my mouth, that's not how it works."

Massie slaps at him again, knowing where his face is and estimating where his hands are. She gets his chest this time. " _That_ ," she hisses. "I can't tell where it's coming from, but—"

"Remind me to never go anywhere with you two again." Cam groans. "It's like I'm with an old married couple."

"Aw," Derrick says. He's taken to doing that every time Cam says something remotely offensive.

The rustling Massie heard gets louder, and she's able to determine where it's coming from. Her body shifts, knees bending, easing into a fight stance she's been so accustomed to as of late. What's out there? She doesn't know and won't know until it's too late, but—

Stupidly, Derrick notes, "I hear it now. If that's the sound you've been mentioning."

"Christ," Massie mutters, kicking her foot back. She gets his shin.

"Ow," Derrick whispers, then, "Cam, that better be you next to me. I will _freak_ if a bat comes within a ten mile radius of me."

"Seriously? _Bats_? That's your thing?"

"They are unnatural flying rats," Derrick defends. "They are also virtually nonexistent in Four. I hear you have them in abundance around here. I'm not about it. _No me gusta_."

A light flickers on while the rustling grows. Branches break in an easy pattern, indicating footsteps. It's a person, and they are not as uncomfortable in this wood as Massie and her companions are. Not as annoying, either.

"Derrick, is that you?"

The blonde takes a step forward, brushing against Massie's shoulder. "Josh?" he calls out, voice hesitant.

Massie grabs his wrist, holds tight.

Cam comes up on her other side, silent and swift. He is at full attention, but there is something off in the way he stands. His energy is different. Massie chalks that up to him not seeing Josh in a while, in them pretending like they aren't nervous Four also got bombed.

"Is Massie with you? And Cam?" Pause. "Where are you?"

Cam's arm comes behind Massie to slap Derrick on the back. "Don't answer that," he hisses.

"But," Massie says.

"It's just Josh," Derrick adds.

It's too dark to see Cam's face but Massie can picture it: brows furrowed, mouth in a thin line, cheeks sharp. "We don't know that."

And though it makes sense—even though it's _Josh_ , they know him—and even though neither of them say a word after that, it doesn't matter. Josh and his flashlight find them anyway. He looks just as rough as they probably do, dirty, hair mussy, but his eyes flicker when he finds them. His mouth curls into a smile, then drops again when he makes eye contact with Cam.

With the addition of the bright light, Massie can see. And what she sees—

Cam, red in the cheeks, eyes blazing.

Josh, determined yet apologetic, eyes wide.

And Derrick, stepping closer to Massie, frowning deeply.

They're having a whole conversation without words and Massie is left out of the loop. _Like always_ , a snide voice in her head whispers.

She ignores that because this seems… it's different than she's used to. It's like they're all saying different things at the same time, but no one is listening.

Cam's voice echoes when he says, "Please don't do this."

When he _begs_ , "Please don't do this."

"I have to." Josh winces. "It's the only way."

"It's not," Cam insists. " _Josh_."

Massie looks away, uncomfortable with how Cam is speaking to Josh, appealing and desperate and yearning all at once. She shifts into the protective stance Derrick has over her, if only to feel less awkward. If only to feel someone else is here with her.

Derrick wraps his arm around her, pulls her closer. His mouth is against her temple, a chaste kiss pressed there. "When I tell you to," he whispers, breath hot against her ear, "run."

 _Run?_

She twists her head to look at him, opening her mouth. He shakes his head just once and she silences herself, pressing her lips together.

Run? What does he mean by _run_? Despite the obvious. Why should she do that? What is Cam talking about? Why does she feel so _dumb_ all the time?

"Josh," Cam says again. Cam _appeals_ again. "You don't have to do this. Come with me and we can—"

The other's sudden movements stop Cam from speaking, and Josh is cupping his face, noses touching. "You know it's not that easy," he breathes. "I can't just… you can't… it's _not_ —it's the only way. I'm in too deep. I'm not—I'm not… they _bought_ me—" Their faces are so close, the darkness is making it hard to see, but the words he says reverberate. "If I don't, Kayla and my mom… even my dad, they'll be in trouble, and I can't—"

"You've already gotten them into enough trouble." This is Derrick now, someone who knows explicitly what results in doing the opposite of what is expected of him. "I know what that's like."

"I can't do that to them again," Josh says. "I already—our coming out was enough for them. I can't let anything else happen, I _can't._ " He finally looks away from Cam to glance at Massie and Derrick. His eyes swim with tears. "Even if I wanted to, I'm not alone."

" _Please_ ," Cam begs again. "Please."

"I can't," says Josh. "I'm sorry. I love you."

Cam blinks. His hands drop from Josh's elbows.

Voice cracking, Josh asks, "Don't you love me?"

"I do," Cam answers, "but if you do this… if you let this happen, I don't think I can continue the same way." He runs his fingers through Josh's thick hair. "You know better than this. You know it's not the only way. We can protect your family, _we can_."

"If it were just me," Josh starts. "If it were just me, you know I'd pretend I didn't see you. I scouted ahead just so I could warn you."

Massie blurts, "Who are you with?"

"Me," Fawn Davies hisses, wrapping her fingers around Massie's throat. She laughs, a husky sort of thing. "Miss me?" Massie waves her arms, whacking Fawn in the face, trying to get her off her. "I figured you'd be of no help, Hotz. You're so predictable, with your stupid relationship and your insignificant feelings."

Massie hits her again, trying to break her nose, which she _can_ do, she knows how, she just needs to get the right angle…

But she kind of can't breathe, and… and…

"I always hated you," Fawn snaps, low in her ear.

"Because you were jealous," Massie forces out, voice half a croak. "No one likes you, not even your Sponsors." She coughs, settling her elbowing Fawn in the stomach instead of hitting her in the face. She is not expecting that, and she eases up on Massie's throat, just a little. It gives her enough time to pull in a large breath, filling her lungs. "You volunteered when you shouldn't have, because you weren't picked, and your winning was a _fluke_. You've never done anything interesting or worthwhile your entire life, and now you're a washed-up thirty-something trying to kill a _teenager_ because—"

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you," Fawn interrupts, a seductive coo. "That would be kind compared to what's in store for you."

She lets go of Massie suddenly, and the younger girl drops to her knees, panting. Her body feels heavy, her head lightheaded. Her knees dig uncomfortably into the ground, a stick breaking the skin there. It stings. Massie imagines she can feel the blood leaking out of the wound. It is _always_ her knees, and _always_ her throat, and she is _always_ taken unawares.

" _Get off me_!" Fawn shrieks. Her voice echoes in the night, spooking a couple of birds, who immediately take flight, squawking. "You - big - _lug_!"

"Tell me what you mean," Derrick orders, pinning Fawn to the ground. "What else is in store for her? What are you doing to her? Why are you here?"

Fawn laughs, like actually _laughs_ , deep and throaty. "Why do you assume it's just her?"

" _Tell me_ ," Derrick repeats.

Massie turns her head, still catching her breath, and watches as he slams her head back down. There is a dull thud as the back of her skull meets the hard dirt, but Fawn just seems entertained with the whole thing. She was always crazy like that, one of those true District One Careers, even if she was never meant to be one.

"Your nephews are alive," Fawn informs him. It's not an answer to the question, but it does the job.

Derrick loosens his hold on the woman, shell-shocked, and gives Fawn the opportunity to shove him. He falls back, staring at her, and Massie crawls over to keep her from doing… doing whatever it is she plans to do next.

Fawn presses her face close to Derrick's, noses touching. He stares. Says, "You're lying."

"They never found the bodies," Fawn says. "That's because there were no bodies. We took them, so we could have something to hold over you. You haven't been a very good boy, have you? You know we couldn't hurt Massie when you stepped out of line, but we could hurt…"

" _No_ ," Derrick snaps.

Fawn titters. "There is nothing to say _no_ to, sweetheart. It's already happened. Every missed meeting, every unsatisfied customer… did you think there wouldn't be consequences?"

"You're lying to me, trying to trick me," Derrick hisses. "I won't fall for it, Fawn. You're just a pathetic—"

"Josh!" Fawn calls. "Are Derrick's nephews still alive?"

Massie looks up, catches the look in Josh's eye. "Barely," he whispers, wincing.

" _Barely_?" Derrick shouts. "What do you mean _barely_?"

" _Josh_ ," Cam hisses.

"They're alive," says Josh. "I swear. I've seen them, they're _fine_."

"They're not _fine_." Fawn laughs. "And neither will your pretty little girlfriend be when we're done with her."

"You really underestimate her," Derrick snarls. "You can't do anything to her, she's—"

"She's the pathetic one, Derrick Harrington," Fawn tells him. She enunciates his name weirdly, which makes Massie look over at her again. "She can't do anything right. Can't tour the country, can't make her own decisions, can't even win the Hunger Games." She tuts, running a hand through his hair, cupping his face. He jerks out of the way. "If only you'd just killed her when you had the chance. You wouldn't have been involved in all of this. You could have lived a perfect, normal life…"

Derrick scoffs, batting her away from him. "My life would not have been normal or perfect had I won alone," he tells her. Fawn's face contorts. "She may not have won the Hunger Games the right way, but who fucking cares? The Games are just a way to control us all. There is no glory in it, there is no fame, no peace. Are you happy, Fawn? Did you imagine your life would turn out just like this when you won? Were you dreaming of doing the Capitol's dirty work for them—is that why you volunteered? To become a _puppet_?"

All the emotion leaves her face; she is just pale and blue-eyed, dark in the starlight. She and Derrick look so uncomfortably similar then, hair shimmering, shadows dancing across their cheekbones.

"Of course I didn't," Fawn answers, and Massie thinks it's the most honest she's ever been. "My home life was hard. We can't all be rich and famous in One, and I volunteered because I needed to. I needed to win to help my family eat, and I was eighteen, and I had no other choice." She shuts her mouth abruptly, teeth grinding, like she's ashamed of herself for even considering the questions Derrick's thrown at her.

Somewhere in the distance, Massie hears voices, footsteps. It's not just Josh and Fawn. If it was…

She pushes herself to her feet, stumbling as she rises.

Fawn keeps talking, but Massie is only focused on getting the knives from Cam. They're tiny, but she's sharpened most of them, and if she aims correctly, she can—

If it's only Josh and Fawn, they'll make it out of here. Massie just has to get rid of the rest of them.

"Give me," she says to Cam. To Josh, she snaps, "Are you going to be useful?"

"I just want to survive," Fawn tells Derrick. "You have to understand that. We all do shitty things to survive."

"Surviving is not living," Derrick replies. "Surely you've got to realize that. This isn't a life, what you're living, and… and you don't have to."

Fawn is silent, as if Derrick has really gotten to her, but Massie knows better. Massie _knows_ Fawn, and the way she agrees with people just to get them off her back, and the way she doesn't believe in anyone but herself, even if she tells you otherwise. She believed in Kemp, not Massie, and she believes in whoever she's working for, not Derrick.

The knives are light. Massie slips three between the fingers of her left hand, holds another by the hilt with her right, ready to throw if she has to.

And she will have to.

Regardless of who is there on the other end, she'll throw it. She'll throw it because she's made her decision. She's made her choice, and it's time to act on it.

"I'm sorry, Derrick," Fawn says, "but you're wrong. There's no such thing as living. Not in this world. And your girl over there? She's ruining my chances of survival."

The words, and there are a lot of them, expand in Massie's mind. It's like she can see them, written in the forest around them, in the stars. She sees them, she hears them, and she knows what will come next.

She pivots, takes one step forward, and throws.

The wind whistles, sharp and deadly, and there is a shocked intake of breath.

"Massie," Derrick says.

"You killed Danny Robbins," she retorts. "Please get my knife back for me."

He does, pulling it out of Fawn's throat, where it makes a squelching sound. The blade glitters in the light of Josh's flashlight, a big lamp, and blood drips from the tip. It feels like she's in that arena again, killing people for getting in her way. The thought should make her nauseous, but it doesn't. She knows now that the Game never ends. There is no winner, only a slew of losers, all trying to convince themselves that being alive and staying alive is the real prize.

Honestly she did Fawn a favor.

Derrick flips the knife back into Massie's palm after wiping it clean on his shirt.

"I didn't want to find out what was in store for me," Massie announces, feeling like she has to explain herself.

"She was just buying time anyway," Josh remarks. "She's waiting for them to get here." He nods towards the sounds, getting louder and closer. "She was just humoring you, Derrick. She likes her sorry excuse for a life."

"Liked," Massie amends.

Josh bites his lip, uncomfortable, and moves away, just a smidge, from Massie. She pretends not to notice.

"Don't head towards the Hub," he says. "They'll be waiting for you on the way there. Go back towards the districts. Try to get to Three, if you can. I know it's far, but it's the only safe space there is now."

"The Hub—"

"Was never a place for you," Josh finishes. "Massie was right about Angela. You can't trust her. She's not running a rebellion. She's just another person trying to keep the Capitol in power, and the work she's doing, it's all for Myner anyways." He swallows. "This way he knows who is loyal to him and who isn't. Go to Three. That's where the real work is. Abeley… he'll be the one to save us all."

"Come with us." It's Massie that says this, not Cam, not Derrick. Massie, who hates Josh, and who Josh hates. "I killed Fawn. They can think we killed you too."

"I can't," Josh replies. "I wasn't exaggerating. My family is in danger. They've been in danger for years, and I can't keep putting myself first. Kayla, she's my sister, she's only fourteen—when Myner found out about Cam and I, when he thought Cam wouldn't be able to be sold anymore, he had her beat within an inch of her life as a way to keep us quiet. She was eleven then. I can't put her through that again."

"You never told me that," Cam whispers. "I thought…"

"That I was having second thoughts? That I didn't…" Josh shakes his head, distressed. "I've been in love with you for years. I never thought you'd ever—and when you _did_ , it was… it was like… I felt like I was finally more than the murderer I was. That I could be loved, even after everything. You know," he says, "when the dust clears, you're just a person that killed a lot of kids. You have that on your conscience for the rest of your life. You did what you had to, and yet… you didn't have to. None of this is necessary. It doesn't do anything, sending two kids from each district in there. But Cam, you made me feel… you made me feel like I was more than that, for once in my life. You still do."

Massie feels her heart plummet to her feet. It's disorienting and painful, but there it lies, in pieces on the ground. She knows that feeling. They all do.

"Come," she pleads again. "It's not going to be easy, but it will be better."

Josh shakes his head. "I've got to report back, once you've gone," he says. "They're… Kayla is in one of the rooms, and they're not letting her eat. I'm afraid what they'll do when I don't bring you back, but…"

Derrick's hand is sweaty when it slips into Massie's. She squeezes tightly.

"I'm going to need you to punch me," Josh continues, glancing at Cam. "Make it seem like we fought and I lost, and you got away."

"Derrick," Cam says. "Can you—?"

"No. I want it to be you," Josh states. "I deserve it from you. I've been playing you for months, and I just had to tell you what was going on, and I could have… It didn't have to be like this, I know, if I had just been open about it, but I wasn't, and—" He grabs Cam's hands, slack at his sides. "Make it count."

Derrick starts to pull Massie away, veering left and deeper into the forest. "Cam'll find us," he promises her when she struggles. "You don't need to see that."

"I don't even _like_ Josh," Massie argues. "Maybe I want to see Cam punch him."

"You don't," says Derrick. "Trust me."

"Cam." The sound of his name, the way it falls from Josh's lips, it makes Massie flinch. Derrick tightens his hold on her hand, afraid she's going to go somewhere, maybe, not like she would, and murmurs something under his breath in that language she doesn't know. Josh continues in the distance, and they are not far away enough that they can't hear him.

Massie kind of doesn't want to be able to, not liking the sheer level of emotion Josh possesses. It stresses her out.

"I meant it," he tells Cam. His voice travels. Massie tries to get control of her hand, the one Derrick is clutching, to cover her ears. He won't let her. She has to listen to each excruciating word and it makes her itchy. "When you asked and I said—I'm in love with you, you know that, but I can't just… this is the best I can do. You don't understand."

"You're right." Cam is gruff, biting off the edges of syllables, making them sharp. "I don't. How long have you been doing this?"

"A couple of years." Pause. "Three, maybe? She… she promised she'd take care of Kayla, and she did, but I didn't realize there'd be a price. She said she was better than him. I believed her."

Massie bites her lip.

"Three years," Cam repeats. " _Three._ " He huffs out a laugh that makes Massie's skin crawl, reminds her of their time in Two. "Did you know about all the extra people she made me fuck? Did you know and _not tell me_?"

Derrick's fingers twitch in Massie's hand. She squeezes, remembers how he looked in the Capitol, and in Four, and in Two.

"She told me," Josh admits. "She told me to punish me, so I could suffer."

"So _you_ could suffer," Cam bleats, deadpan. "You."

"Do you know what it's like knowing the person you—the person—" Josh struggles to find the words and for one minuscule moment Massie sympathizes with him. She knows.

Cam snaps, "No, but I know what it's like to be _that person_. I never wanted any of that. I only ever wanted you. I didn't realize you were so scared of everything you'd turn into this."

"I didn't—"

"I had been willing to lose everything for you," Cam interrupts. "I already had nothing, so it wasn't like there was much to lose."

"They're taking too long," Massie whispers to Derrick, the boy frozen beside her, listening. "It's only going to be a matter of time before whoever is with Josh catches up to him."

Derrick only breathes, shaky, almost like he isn't even there with her.

"I trusted you," Cam says. "You were the only person who understood"—his voice cracks—"and this whole time… _this whole time_ … you've been with them. You've been _against_ me."

"She tricked me," Josh defends, practically wailing, and time ticks on and on and on, running out. "They all did! It's all the same, no matter where you go, it's never about you, there's no way to fight it—"

"Massie did," Cam hisses. "Massie _is_. She may have taken a long time but they fucked with her mind and she _still_ knows who is to blame."

"I'm not Massie," Josh shoots back. "I can't… I'm not so self-absorbed to think I can take on the entire—"

"Stop," Cam snarls. "I get that you don't like her, but at least she's doing more than you."

"Cam, I've been trying," Josh pleads. "I'm here, aren't I? I could have just asked for you to be spared when you showed up at the Hub, I didn't have to—" He cuts himself off. "I told William about the bombing, I _saved_ him, I dropped him at Three—"

"What," Cam says.

Josh says, "I'm the reason Will isn't dead. I told him. I _warned_ him."

"How did you know?" asks Cam. "About the bombing, how did you know? I thought you were Angela's lapdog. The Capitol bombed One."

"Yeah, and Angela is Myner's wife, so I guess I'm the Capitol's lapdog, too," Josh answers, small and wavering.

Cam breaks his nose—well, no, Massie can't be certain of that—but Cam breaks _something_ , that's for sure. They can hear the crack from where they stand, Massie and Derrick, even as the words _Angela is Myner's wife_ spin around and around in Massie's mind.


End file.
